Over the past week, demand for Turkish rebar in export markets have remained weak, while Turkish mills have decreased their prices by $10/mt to 520-530/mt FOB, on actual weight basis in line with the softening of prices of imported rebar and imported billet.
Following the US President Trump’s decision to increase the duties on Turkish steel imports from 25 percent to 50 percent on August 10, Turkish mills have lost their price advantage and most of their contracts have been cancelled.
Due to the problems with the US and since the European market is on holiday, Turkish mills have directed their interest to Far Eastern market. As domestic rebar prices in China has moved upwards due to the ongoing production cuts at Chinese steel mills and the inspections carried out to determine whether steel mills were complying with these production cuts, Chinese exporters’ rebar quotations have also increased. Consequently, Turkish rebar offers have gained price advantage in Far East and Turkish exporters have concluded 50,000 mt of rebar deal to Hong Kong at $530/mt CFR this week, following their sales to Singapore last week.
Considering the downward movement of import scrap prices and weak demand for domestic rebar in Turkey, buyers in the global market are expected to exert additional pressure on Turkish rebar quotations in the coming period.