In this week's Turkish merchant bar market analysis, we will take a look at the Turkish export market data for merchant bars lately published by the Istanbul Mineral and Metals Exporters' Association (IMMIB), as we do each month. According to the IMMIB data, Turkey exported approximately 790,000 mt of merchant bars in January-July 2008, whereas it exported approximately 1,000,000 mt of this product in the same period this year.
In January-June 2009, Turkey's most important merchant bar export markets were (figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand):
Country | Amount |
122,000 mt | |
65,000 mt | |
Saudi Arabia | 52,000 mt |
49,000 mt | |
Algeria | 46,000 mt |
35,000 mt |
However, In January-June 2008, Turkey's most important merchant bar export markets were (figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand):
Country | Amount |
108,000 mt | |
100,000 mt | |
83,000 mt | |
81,000 mt | |
44,000 mt | |
38,000 mt | |
38,000 mt |
When comparing the first seven months of 2009 with the same period of last year, a change is again observed to have taken place in the destination markets of Turkey's merchant bar exports. In particular, in January-July this year Turkey's leading export destinations for its merchant bars are all either North African or Middle Eastern countries. Meanwhile, European countries such as UK, Romania and Spain, which were among the principal importers of Turkish merchant bar in the same period last year, no longer feature as leading destinations this year.
Meanwhile, at present Turkish merchant bar prices are still being pushed up by rising raw material and billet prices. Accordingly, the Turkish merchant bar producers' offers to the export markets are currently at the range of $550-570/mt FOB for October shipments.