Although prices for future orders of Turkish wire rod the US are still quiet this week, a recent surge in import permits will likely result in even more competition. The new overall import permit total for this month (as of August 24) reached 117,534 mt earlier this week, already surpassing the preliminary census data total of 106,327 mt for July. While Turkey’s July and August totals are comparable, some brand-new sources for import wire rod have appeared in the totals. Belarus, for example, which hasn’t accounted for any wire rod imports to the US since May, is responsible for 13,722 mt of wire rod so far in August, while Ukraine, Korea and Russia continue to surpass their previous-month totals as well (totaling 17,925 mt, 16,070 mt, and 15,609 mt, respectively).
As such, traders report that there is not much current interest in future offers, particularly from Turkey, with offers still in the range of $21.50-$22.50 cwt. ($430-$450/nt or $474-$496/mt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports—unchanged in the last week.