Turkey’s integrated Kardemir has opened its billet sales after a long absence. The supplier has announced its price in line with the overall domestic indications of the past week, though the achieved sales volume has been minimal. One reason is that the latest local billet prices across Turkey have not been workable, while another reason is the aggressive import pricing in offers from Russia.
Kardemir announced $590/mt ex-works for S235JR grade and to $595/mt ex-works for S420-B420 grade and sold only 3,700 mt of billet. According to sources, if the producer’s prices were widely accepted in Turkey, billet imports may have been acceptable at $540-550/mt CFR. However, since the sales of Kardemir have been very slow, there is no chance for such import levels to be achieved, so it seems. The latest offers for Russian origin were at $525-530/mt CFR, versus $520-550/mt CFR levels at the end of last week.
