Though the situation in the finished steel market in Turkey has remained difficult and scrap prices are stable, import billet prices have stopped declining, at least for now, mainly amid limited supply. Not having many offers available for both short and long lead times, Turkish buyers have become a little more active in negotiations, though deals are still rare and some buyers are still bidding low.
Offers for ex-Asia and ex-Algeria billet in Turkey have remained relatively stable over the past week, at $530-535/mt CFR. Even though the previous deals done two weeks back for these origins were at $526-528/mt CFR, market sources believe that the current offers could be attractive for some buyers considering the limited supply in both the local and import markets. A deal for a large cargo of ex-Indonesia billet has been rumored at $530-535/mt CFR. Though some market sources believe it was done late last week, some said that the buyer is still in negotiation. In any case, the price level seems realistic in the current market conditions. Moreover, a lot of 40,000 mt of Malaysian billet for June shipment has been available at $530-535/mt CFR Turkey. The main problem for Asian origin billet is that it can be sold only in a large volume, while there are very few buyers who need 40,000 mt of billet at the moment.
Most of the Asian offers are from traders in positions, while the situation in the billet export market in Asia has been very uneven. While Chinese billet prices have kept going down, to $490-500/mt FOB on Wednesday, the Indonesian mill has voiced its official offer at $500/mt FOB and its last sale was at $495/mt FOB, signaling that sellers in the ASEAN region are resisting price cuts, at least this week.
Among the non-toxic billet origins, Ukrainian billet has been available in Turkey at up to $560/mt CFR, being too high for the current market.
The SteelOrbis reference price for ex-Russia billet has remained at $490-495/mt FOB Black Sea. “Billet indications are nominally recovering a little, to $520/mt CFR TBS [Turkish Black Sea] for the CIS,” a mill source said. However, one of the traders selling Russian billet mentioned that he does not see any improvement in terms of prices and that the previous levels of $515-520/mt CFR are still the highest possible. Moreover, some customers have been bidding at very low levels of $500-505/mt CFR, but only in case of no urgent need to restock.
In the local Turkish market, prices have been reported at $550-560/mt ex-works/CPT, stable on average over the past week, and some market sources believe that the situation may be a little clearer when Kardemir announces new prices for billets.
