The silence of Turkey’s import scrap market has ended by an ex-Baltic booking disclosed to the market today, September 24, with benchmark grade scrap prices from the region declining further by $4.5/mt.
SteelOrbis has learned that a Black Sea-based steelmaker has concluded the ex-Estonia deal for 22,000 mt of HMS I/II 80:20 scrap at $434/mt CFR and 3,000 mt of bonus grade scrap at $449/mt CFR. While this deal has not been confirmed by the buyer or the seller at the time of publication, market players largely believe that it is done. Previous to this booking, ex-Baltic HMS I/II 80:20 scrap prices were in the range of $438-439/mt CFR, both fixed in deals.
The estimation of a decrease shared by SteelOrbis yesterday has realized by this transaction. Meanwhile the main question now is the response of US-based suppliers who were resisting to the downtrend of the market for some time. The early estimations for the local US scrap market signals for a decrease for busheling scrap quotations, while a mostly stable trend is expected for HMS, shredded and P&S grades in the October-buy-cycle. Sources state that relatively low levels of pig iron prices will exert pressure to busheling scrap. However, market sources state that shredded scrap prices in the local US market are still indicating high levels for Turkey, and no tendency to lower prices from the US is observed. It is known that Europe has large tonnages of HMS availability, though suppliers are stating that the same cannot be told about the cut grades such as shredded. Except for the deal abovementioned, Turkey’s import scrap market is still quiet, SteelOrbis understands.
As Turkish lira continues to lose strength against the US dollar today, Turkey’s domestic rebar market is tense. Following the Central Bank’s decision to cut interest rates to 18 percent, Turkish lira has depreciated to an all times rate of 8.80 against the dollar, then recovered a bit. Under the current circumstances, traders and producers are trying to hold their rebar prices but there is little demand in the market.