A certain softening has been observed in the Turkish domestic merchant bar market in the last two weeks. Beside decreases in raw materials and semi finished products, as the main reason behind this movement like other steel products, buyers are delaying their purchase activity seeing the further downtrend. Nevertheless, merchant bar market in Turkey has been more active compared the rebar market in recent days.
In the last week, Turkish merchant bar market was characterized by a price policy that occurred from competition. At this point, merchant bar prices in the region were shaped by the raw material and semi products supply prices. While some different ranges have been heard among the list prices, prices were shaped depending on customer, tonnage and payment terms.
Buyer in the Turkish merchant bar market continued in the last week to either delay their purchases or buy in line only their needs. In addition, US dollar and Turkish lira exchange rate is still an important price factor. In the local market, merchant bar prices (varying depending on product) were at TRY 715-790/mt ($480-531/mt) ex-works, excluding VAT in the last week.
Meanwhile, North Africa and Middle East are still the leading merchant bar export markets for Turkey while the offered (and sold) regions have changed in the couple of weeks. In general Turkish merchant bar export prices have been at $500-540/mt FOB, some buyers in the foreign markets are delaying their purchase activities thinking that the prices are on a downtrend, other buyers are making purchase since they think that the prices hit the bottom. Some producers, on the other hand, are delivering the previously concluded deals in this period.
As a conclusion under the light of all these developments, it is expected that the Turkish merchant bar price levels will be characterized by the producers' finished steel sales volume, scrap buying strategies and the upcoming winter season.