Most Turkish mills hike local scrap prices impacted by weaker lira

Most Turkish mills have announced increases in their domestic scrap purchase prices today, October 15, though their dollar-based prices have followed diverse trends. With the depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar hitting another historical record with the exchange rate now at 1 : 9.23, Turkish mills are trying to adjust their prices accordingly. The increases in question are in the range of TRY 50-650/mt as compared to October 13, in the dollar prices causing a $4/mt decrease on the lower end and $2-64/mt rises in other mills’ prices. A few Turkish mills that decided to keep their local currency prices stable in this period have decreased their dollar-based quotations by $6-9/mt. As mentioned by SteelOrbis in our previous report, Koç Metallurgy stated that they will not accept domestic scrap until the end of 2021.

After the price adjustments, the general range in the local Turkish scrap market for the benchmark DKP grade scrap has increased on the upper end from TRY 3,550-4,410/mt to $3,550-4,560/mt, while on US dollar basis they have settled at $385-494/mt, versus $392-487/mt previously.

All above prices are for deliveries to customer and exclude VAT. Exchange rate fluctuations are taken into consideration when calculating the dollar-based price changes.

$1 = TRY 9.23