Trading activity in the Turkish market for import billet has been limited in early May even despite the recent rise in scrap prices, since buyers have been seeing scrap as the better alternative, also considering the long lead times for Asian billet.
The latest offers for ex-China billet to Turkey have been reported at $460-462/mt CFR, which is slightly down from $462-465/mt CFR seen early this week, mainly due to the decline in futures prices today, May 8. Nevertheless, rare bids from buyers have been confirmed at $445-450/mt CFR only, meaning that Turkish buyers are not ready to pay higher than in the previous contracts. As SteelOrbis reported in late April, two billet deals for 3SP billet with manganese content of 0.60 percent and wire rod grade billet were done at $452-455/mt CFR Izmir and Diliskelesi.
Ex-Indonesia and ex-Malaysia indicative offers have been at $465/mt CFR and $470/mt CFR, respectively. One trader has said that theoretically for duty-free Malaysian billet the price may work, but the problem is the long lead time. “People do not risk buying billet which will arrive in September,” he said.
The SteelOrbis reference price for ex-Russia billet stands at $430-435/mt FOB Black Sea, increasing by $2.5/mt from late last week. Rare offers to Turkey have been mainly at $455-460/mt CFR, translating to $435-440/mt FOB, while some sources said that there has been "zero supply available." Latest deals for small volumes were done about 10 days ago at $445/mt CFR, translating to $425/mt FOB. The ruble has depreciated slightly today to $1 = RUB 82.5, versus the recent lowest level of $1 = RUB 80.5 on May 5-6, but this has been not enough for sellers to be more flexible.