Turkish billet buyers are still mostly cautious towards sizeable import bookings from Asia with only occasional negotiations being reported, even though import scrap prices seem firm and, moreover, longs prices have finally started to strengthen. Still, this week, many have preferred to restock in the domestic market, especially since the offers announced by Kardemir have been on the acceptable side.
Today, May 22, Turkey’s integrated Kardemir has announced new billet sales at $500/mt ex-works for S235JR grade and $510/mt ex-works for B420 steel grade. According to market information, the producer has received a decent amount of demand and managed to close sales totaling 57,000 mt. “With the payment options, Kardemir’s billet is not tremendously more expensive than import billet. Thus, more or less all regular customers booked in this round. In addition, Russia is not quite present in the market, so Kardemir has more space,” a trading source told SteelOrbis. As for other billet producers in Turkey, the price level in the Iskenderun region is at $505-510/mt ex-works depending on the mill, while in the Marmara region the indications are at $500-505/mt ex-works/CPT. In the Izmir region, according to sources, one of the mills is still insisting on $515/mt ex-works for local customers.
As mentioned earlier, ex-Russia billet offers to Turkey have been limited this week as the major mills have not had so much free allocation. And “I don't think that Russia will offer actively in the export billet market until the actual exchange rate is below 80 rubles per dollar [$1 = RUB 79.66 on May 22],” a market source said. The exchange rate below $1 = RUB 80 was last time seen in May 2023. The latest small deals were done at $460/mt CFR, translating to around $440/mt FOB Black Sea. Sources said that they see the workable level for ex-Donbas billet (from Ukrainian plants in the region occupied by Russia) at the same $460/mt CFR level, but there are no active negotiations. So, SteelOrbis has left the reference price for ex-Russia billet unchanged at $440/mt FOB.
Billet offerings from Ukraine have been resumed from the past week with the indications coming for cargoes mainly for July shipments. The latest levels have been reported at $490-500/mt CFR Turkey, with the lower end of the range being workable.
Asian billet offers have not changed drastically since the past week and, depending on the situation in China, the indications for this origin have been volatile within the narrow range of $465-473/mt CFR (mainly August shipments) and in some cases slightly above. There has been information about a sale at $466-467/mt CFR Izmir for up to 30,000 mt of billet for end-of-July shipment. However, it was not fully confirmed by the time of publication. The prices for Indonesia are indicative and mainly reported at $473-475/mt CFR, while, according to the latest information, a 165 mm billet cargo from Malaysia has been available at $475/mt CFR, with no further developments reported.
