The announcement this week that the US Department of Commerce has launched an antidumping and countervailing duty investigation into wire rod imports from 10 countries might have had an immediate “positive sentiment” effect on the US domestic wire rod market, but sources say the import market has not been affected yet.
Before the investigation was announced, wire rod import offers from Turkey had already slipped a bit due to lower scrap prices. Sources tell SteelOrbis that the high alleged margins mentioned in the announcement will not likely translate to preliminary or final margins, and so traders are not adjusting their prices accordingly.
As such, it is likely that as long as scrap prices are weak and Turkish mills are eager to book orders, import wire rod offers to the US will remain softly stable or trend downward. This week, Turkish offers of imported product in the US domestic market are in the range of $22.50-$23.50 cwt. ($450-$470/nt or $495-$518/mt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports, reflecting a decrease of $0.50 cwt. ($10/nt or $11/mt) in the last week.