In Turkey, the business activity has been slow after the holiday and the number of talks has been limited. On one side, there is a limited number of offers coming from Russia and many sellers are out of the market. Some of them, taking into account that the workable prices are going below their costs, have stepped back from offering, while some are targeting to sell for September production, which will not meet with positive feedback among Turkey’s buyers.
While before the holiday Russian sellers were targeting to sell at $600-620/mt CFR, early this week one sale for 3,000 mt was sold ex-Russia at $622/mt CFR Zonguldak, but, according to the seller, the purchase was very urgent and the level does not reflect the current market price. Currently, rare offers for ex-Russia billet are at $580-600/mt CFR, while the sellers of ex-Donbass cargoes have been fishing at $590-605/mt CFR depending on the seller and the region. “I believe the line of $600/mt CFR from Russia will be not easy to cross, taking into account that scrap continues weakening,” a trader told SteelOrbis. Aside from Russia, there have been offers coming from Qatar at $600/mt CFR, sources say.
Basically, the sellers report that negotiations are going very slowly and even buyers are not very eager to place bids while having a hard time seeing the nearest market future clearly. However, there has been information about $562/mt CFR Marmara and $580/mt CFR Izmir sales from a large Russian supplier, but the talk has not been confirmed by the time of publication. Some sources are confident this is information being used to put pressure on billet and scrap sellers, while others report that at least the first deal was actually done, but it is not new.
In the meantime, in the domestic market in Turkey, a 10,000 mt sale was closed at $630/mt ex-works Iskenderun to a Marmara-based mill with estimated freight of $20/mt. The latest offers are at $650/mt ex-works Iskenderun and similar or $10-15/mt higher levels are reported as indicative in the Izmir and Marmara areas.