Turkish rebar regains strength in Yemeni market

Competitive Chinese rebar import offers to the local Yemeni market, which had dominated the market in the past couple of weeks, have lost their strength in the market. Last week Chinese mills' rebar offers to Yemen were standing at $600/mt CFR on theoretical weight basis and for October shipments, but these offers have failed to gain acceptance by Yemeni buyers against ex-Turkey offers at $600-610/mt CFR depending on volume, on theoretical weight basis and for October shipments. Consequently, early this week ex-China rebar offers to Yemen have been revised downwards to $580-590/mt CFR.
 
However, major rebar buyers in the Persian Gulf state that ex-China rebar offers to the region will not gain acceptance until they are priced $30-40/mt lower than Turkish offers and Turkish mills' prices have achieved their domination in the Gulf region. Meanwhile, Yemeni buyers are keeping a close eye on the Chinese market and they believe that ex-China offers will likely decline to $550-560/mt CFR in the coming period. However, if Chinese offers fail to show the anticipated decline, Turkish steel mills may try to push up their offers, though such move would not gain acceptance by local buyers before the start of new year, amid high inventory levels in the Yemeni domestic market.