Turkish billet market has been rather quiet ahead of the holidays, especially from the mills’ purchasing side. The producers are currently not willing much to bear risks of the long lead time with cargoes from Asia and are bidding by at least $5-10/mt below the offered levels. Re-rollers, however, are a bit more active since they can buy lower volumes and, taking into account the lack of local billet supply in Turkey, do not have many options of sourcing.
This week, ex-Indonesia billet pricing has dropped from $490/mt CFR to $470-475/mt CFR with some traders going short, but this level was still not workable for Turkish producers. Malaysian billet has been on offer at $490-495/mt CFR still, but the workable levels for the re-rollers have been reported at $483-485/mt CFR and slightly above, while the mills have been bidding at no higher than $465-475/mt CFR depending on the buyer. Ex-China material has been not in the focus of attention of Turkish customers this week due to relatively high prices - $475-485/mt CFR. “While Indonesia is at $470/mt CFR, China is not in demand due to higher risks, lower performance confidence and, of course longer lead time,” a trader told SteelOrbis. Currently, Chinese billet is available for the second half of March shipment, Indonesian for end of February and Malaysia is for end of February or early March shipment.
According to sources, Turkish mills have revealed a certain interest in ex-Russia material and small volumes have been booked within $460-465/mt CFR for January and mid-February shipments. Previously, large volumes had been reportedly booked at $462-463/mt CFR. The SteelOrbis daily reference price for ex-Russia billet has narrowed down from $441-447/mt FOB to $440-445/mt FOB, down by $1.5/mt over the week.
