Demand in the international markets for Turkish merchant bar has been at low levels during the past two weeks, while the upward movement of Turkish merchant bar export prices which started at the beginning of March came to a halt towards the end of last week. With the support of the increases seen in import scrap prices in Turkey since the beginning of February until this week, Turkey’s merchant bar export offers increased by $10/mt on the lower end and by $15/mt on the upper end in the first week of March, though they have started to move sideways as the uptrend of import scrap quotations has come to an end this week.
On the other hand, market sources report that European buyers consider Turkish merchant bar export offers to be on the high side, and so they are focusing on their domestic market to meet their needs rather than turning towards imports. Additionally, in the current week European merchant bar producers have gained a price advantage in markets to which Turkish merchant bar exporters conclude sales such as Tunisia and Algeria. Although Turkish merchant bar exporters want to reduce their offers in order to stimulate their sales, this is considered unlikely to happen due to the current high levels of scrap and billet quotations which have caused Turkish mills’ production costs to increase, market sources said.
Turkish merchant bar export prices are currently at the following levels:
Product |
Price ($/mt) |
Angle |
665-680 |
IPN-UPN |
675-690 |
Flat bar |
685-700 |
IPE |
675-690 |
All prices are on FOB basis and for March shipment.