As Turkish mills are making many inquiries for scrap, particularly long steel producers, deep sea scrap prices for Turkey have continued to increase with each new deal. This week was expected to be a lively one since December is a short month and several bookings have been done over the past two days.
SteelOrbis has learned that an Izmir-based producer has concluded two ex-Baltic transactions. The first one from Lithuania closed at $347/mt CFR and the second one from Sweden at $348/mt CFR, both for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap. Hence, ex-Baltic scrap prices have moved up by $2-3/mt since yesterday, December 12, pushing up expectations for the next ex-US scrap price levels to $350/mt CFR.
An ex-Netherlands deal is reported to have been closed at $342/mt CFR for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap by an Istanbul-based producer. The cargo is believed to consist of at least 40,000 mt of scrap. This price is $0.5/mt higher than the previous ex-Belgium deal confirmed yesterday. While most market sources believe this deal to have in fact been done, a few sources believe the origin may be different.
SteelOrbis hears that European scrap offers are now at around $345-350/mt CFR, again pushing up ex-US offers from $350/mt CFR to $355/mt CFR. While sellers are believed to have enough tonnages to cover Turkey’s needs for January shipment, they are also taking a step back from the market due to their expectations of higher price levels in the coming period. “I believe the week has not ended yet. We will hear more deals tonight or maybe at the weekend,” a source commented today, December 13. “We can now easily see that demand in the EU region will not recover in December. The mills are getting ready for early holidays. The US has also dropped by at least $10/mt, signaling that domestic demand is not recovering during the rest of the year. So, the question is how long will this price increase seen in Turkey be,” another source reported. A third source commented, “All will depend on how sellers behave. If they can maintain their current stance and wait, higher levels towards $360/mt CFR for HMS I/II 80:20 may be possible. If suppliers like the current numbers, trading may accelerate and price may stabilize.” Turkey has not covered much ground in terms of January shipments and SteelOrbis considers that the need to secure deep sea cargoes can push prices up further in the coming bookings.
While no new deals have been heard in the short sea segment, the workable levels for Romanian HMS I/II 80:20 scrap are now considered to be at around $325/mt CFR and above.