While being active in terms of the domestic billet restocking within the past couple of weeks, Turkish mills remain interested in imports as well. According to sources, one of the buyers booked a total of 25,000-30,000 mt from Ukraine at around $485-490/mt CFR at the end of last week. This week a small ex-Russia cargo for January shipment has been sold at $499/mt CFR Aliaga. “We are getting close to $500/mt CFR now. Scrap is strong and there is certain lack of billet,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
Sources say that in the Iskenderun region offers are at $510-520/mt ex-works while earlier the deals were fixed at $500/mt ex-works. No local offers are there in the Izmir region. In the Karabuk region Kardemir is out of the market after having sold huge volumes at $495-499/mt ex-works. Another producer, based in the same region, has sold its January volumes to Marmara at $460/mt ex-works last week, sources say.