The sentiment in the billet market in Turkey has cooled down this week under the influence of a weaker rebar price trend in the domestic market and relative silence in the import scrap segment. As a result, while import billet prices have remained relatively stable with activity being currently low, local billet price levels have rolled back slightly.
Local mills in Turkey have not been able to sell much rebar above $600-605/mt ex-works, while some of the official offers have declined by around $5-10/mt to $610-615/mt ex-works Marmara region and to $595-600/mt ex-works Izmir region. In the Iskenderun region the lowest level of offers is evaluated at around $585-590/mt ex-works. Some mills have closed sales for now and are working on individual order basis, which is a signal that demand is not sufficient.
The stable local billet price announced by Kardemir and scarce sales so far are more evidence of the weaker market. The mill has opened sales at $540/mt and $550/mt ex-works, the same as a week ago, but managed to sell only a few thousand tons of billet. In the Izmir region, the billet offers are still at $555-560/mt ex-works, mainly due to the earlier export sales to North Africa closed at these levels. In the Iskenderun region the number of offers is scarce due to low demand, but the indications rolled back $5/mt to $550-555/mt ex-works. A small lot has been sold early this week at $550/mt ex-works.
Import offers for Chinese billet have stabilized for now at $515/mt CFR for early June shipments with not much negotiations reported. The new allocation from Malaysia has been on offer at $535-540/mt CFR for June shipment, up from an earlier reported deal at $530/mt CFR Iskenderun region. The latest billet offers from Ukraine have been set at $540-545/mt CFR with the latest workable numbers reported at $5-10/mt lower levels for limited volumes.
The SteelOrbis reference price for ex-Russia billet has been corrected up slightly - by $5/mt to $470-480/mt FOB Black Sea. Most rare offers have been reported at $503-510/mt CFR to Turkey since late last week, but large Russian mills are targeting only the higher end of the range. “I can say that there is no possibility for buyers to find anything below $500/mt CFR,” a market source said. But even though the current ex-Russia and ex-Donbass offers are among the lowest in the market, negotiations have been slow over the past week.