Unlike current trade cases involving other long products, the antidumping case against Chinese wire rod is widely expected to result in significant margins that will essentially push them out of the US import market for good. Bolstered by these predictions and a dearth of alternative sources, Turkish mills are holding the line on import wire rod offers to the US, in the range of $30.50-$31.50 cwt. ($610-$630/nt or $672-$694/mt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports. However, while the range is still significantly lower than US domestic wire rod spot prices, Turkish mills are still facing market forces outside their control--namely, scant demand levels in the US for domestic or imported wire rod. Unless Turkish mills relent and offer wire rod the US at price levels closer to previous Chinese offerings, traders tell SteelOrbis that Turkish mills will end up as influential in the US wire rod market as Chinese mills: that is to say, not at all.
As for US domestic wire rod prices, vulnerability in the market has pulled the general spot range down to $33.50-$34.50 cwt. ($670-$690/nt or $739-$761/mt) ex-mill for most customers--transactions involving smaller wire product producers and smaller orders are still reportedly coming in at up to $0.50 cwt. ($10/nt or $11/mt) above that range, but the unrelenting scrap downtrend and stagnant end-use activity in areas hit hard by harsh winter weather will probably erode those higher levels in the near-term.