The international wire rod market has seen a fairly strong trend in recent times. Following the China's disappearance from the Middle East, Europe and the USA, the previous occupants have returned to reclaim their market shares.
Early this week, mesh quality wire rod offers in the Turkish export market increased to $760-770/mt FOB, in line with the increasing billet and iron ore prices. In the same period, there were 1,006 drawing quality wire rod offers in the range of $770-780/mt FOB. The price level of sales concluded to Europe, particular to Italy, has been at $740-750/mt FOB recently. It is heard that some sales were concluded to the US at price levels of above $750/mt FOB.
Towards the end of the week, Turkish producers have started to target price levels of above $770/mt FOB for the Americas.
The Ukrainan producers' mesh quality wire rod offers were at $710-720/mt FOB at the beginning of February. However, following the announcement of the iron ore agreements this week, Ukrainan billet prices increased to $700/mt FOB. As a result of the billet price level in question, it is expected that the mesh quality wire rod prices will increase above $750/mt FOB within a very short time period.
Mesh quality wire rod prices in the Italian market were at €540-550/mt ($799-814/mt) delivered to customer with 60-90 day deferred payment. The local wire rod market in Italy is not moving on a negative trend at the moment. Moreover, there has been some tightness in supply. Some deals have been concluded at up to $790/mt CFR from Turkey. The same item's prices in the Spanish market were at €540-550/mt ($799-814/mt) delivered to customer with 90-day deferred payment. Due to new capacity increases, local wire rod prices have declined slightly in the Spanish market. Also, demand in Spain is fairly poor right now.
Demand in Italy, however, cannot exactly be considered to be weak. Besides, it had been expected that the market would rise. In addition, given the level of activity in the international markets, it is thought that the prices of Italian wire rod will go up rapidly in the coming period.