Ahead of the local elections in Turkey to be held in March 31, demand in the Turkish domestic billet market is still slack. Instead of replenishing their inventories, buyers are making bookings only to meet their immediate needs. While domestic billet supplies in Turkey have already decreased as producers had cut their production, demand for billet is still low as no recovery has been observed in demand for rebar and wire rod in the country. Over the past week, Turkish billet producers have decreased their prices by $5/mt on the upper end to $465-480/mt ex-works.
According to market sources, after Turkish rebar producers increased their prices as a result of the depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar; traders, especially traders in the Iskenderun region, did not reflect the increase in producers’ prices in the prices of products in their stocks but kept their prices stable instead. Consequently, demand in the local Turkish rebar market increased slightly, though this recovery was short-lived and demand returned to weak levels