Today, February 17, Turkey’s Kardemir opened its billet sales at a competitive price level and closed them within a couple of hours after selling around 93,000 mt. Some sources, however, state that the total sales may have reached 100,000 mt.
Accordingly, Kardemir set its billet offer prices at TRY 3,985/mt ($565/mt) ex-works for S235JR grade, while its S420-B420 grade billet was available at TRY 4,020/mt ($570/mt) ex-works. The abovementioned prices are TRY 345/mt ($18-19/mt) below the levels previously announced by the company on January 26.
Taking into account the pricing and the sales volume by Kardemir this morning, market players assume the chances for active billet import activity are weak, especially to the northern part of Turkey. As SteelOrbis reported previously, billet offers from the CIS are mainly at $560-565/mt CFR Turkey. “Everybody booked enough, so there will hardly be much interest in billet imports for now. Unless prices increase further,” a trader said.
Prices exclude 18 percent VAT.
$1 = TRY 7.055