Over the past week, buyers and sellers in the local Turkish billet market have continued to be cautious about concluding new deals due to the depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar, while demand for domestic billet in Turkey has remained slack due to buyers’ expectations that prices will soften. As a result of the weak demand, Turkish billet producers have decreased their prices by $12.5/mt on average to $440-445/mt ex-works. However, producers are also offering prices at $435-440/mt ex-works for significant volumes, according to market sources. Meanwhile, it seems that Turkish billet producers are unable to sell their desired volumes ahead of Ramadan, due to the current cautiousness among buyers.
Meanwhile, many Egyptian buyers had to cancel their import billet contracts after the Egyptian government started to impose 25 percent safeguard duty on billet imports as of April 15, while ex-CIS billet supplies in the global market have increased, with plenty of ex-CIS offers seen at different price levels. As a result of the cancellations of billet deals concluded by Turkish and CIS-based suppliers in Egypt, oversupply has also started to be observed in the Turkish billet market.
After a Turkish producer concluded a billet deal to Saudi Arabia at $453/mt CFR as of today, May 2, Turkish buyers have started to expect that domestic billet prices in Turkey may soften further in the coming period.
Currently, CIS-based suppliers’ billet offers to Turkey are mostly at $430-445/mt CFR, though the lower end of this range is for high-volume bookings and spot shipments.
Meanwhile, ex-Turkey billet offers are at $435-440/mt FOB, while deals are also being concluded at lower prices for high-volume bookings.