While Turkish steel mills’ scrap demand has increased significantly this week, they are still exerting downward pressure on scrap prices and are involved in hard bargaining with scrap suppliers, according to market sources. Recently, Turkish mills have significantly stepped up their demand for short sea scrap since they usually prefer short sea scrap when there is an absence of a significantly clear outlook for their steel sales and when they need to meet their immediate needs for scrap purchases. In these context, in the latest deals concluded in Turkey, ex-Romania and ex-Bulgaria A3 scrap have been at $264-265/mt CFR Marmara, ex-Romania A3 scrap has been at $267/mt CFR Aliağa and ex-Adriatic HMS I/II 80:20 scrap has been at $265/mt CFR Aliağa. Meanwhile, Russian suppliers are having difficulty in making sales to the Turkish market, as their A3 grade scrap quotations are higher than the transaction prices in the short sea scrap bookings concluded in Turkey this week.
As for deep sea scrap bookings, a Turkish steel producer has concluded an ex-Baltic deal for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap at $277.5/mt CFR.