Having been weak for some time now, demand in the Turkish billet market has slackened further in the current week, with the market relapsing into silence.
Due to the fluctuating trend of Chinese steel export prices in addition to the uncertainty resulting from the trade tensions in the global steel markets, market sources state that predicting the future trend of billet prices in Turkey has become very difficult.
Although no significant change has been seen in import scrap quotations in Turkey over the past two weeks, Turkish steel mills are still exerting downward pressure on scrap prices. Also, following the depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar to a record level, Turkish rebar producers have revised their domestic prices upwards on Turkish lira basis, though due to currency fluctuations prices have decreased on US dollar basis, causing downward pressure on quotations for both domestically produced and import billet. Amid these negative developments, no new billet offer in the local Turkish billet market has been heard as both buyers and sellers have decided to step back and maintain a wait-and-see stance.
Last week, offers for domestically produced billet in Turkey were in the range of $545-550/mt ex-works, but buyers were targeting prices $10-15/mt lower than this range.