Turkish mills do not hurry for scrap purchases

Calmness and uncertainty still continue in the Turkish scrap market. While most of the mills state that they are not making any purchases, most of the scrap suppliers do not give any offers for sales, either. Few bookings for A3 scrap ex-Black Sea were heard to have been concluded at $278-282/mt CFR Turkish ports last week. The price levels for bigger quantity bookings are high, while lower prices are heard for bookings of smaller quantities. This week, offer levels for A3 scrap ex-Black Sea are heard to be at $275/mt CFR Turkish ports, even lower offer levels are quoted. Such levels do not offset export cost of Russian scrap suppliers when the Russian mills in the local market conclude their purchases at $235/mt. However, certain small quantity bookings are seen likely to be concluded at such levels. For HMS I/II 60:40 scrap ex-US, ex-Europe, which we call “deep sea scrap”, there were offers at $270/mt and below last week. However, no booking was concluded at this level. In the bookings concluded last week, price level of HMS I/II 80:20 scrap was at $288/mt CFR Nemrut and that of shredded scrap was at $294-296/mt CFR Iskenderun. We expect price levels for this week's bookings to be slightly lower than those of last week's. However, no offer or booking has been heard so far. Taking the purchased cargoes for August into account, we think that there is possibility of a few deep sea scrap cargoes to be purchased. We expect to hear bookings in the coming days, a slight softening of prices but not any sharp ups and downs in the short term, taking the expectations that many cargoes ex-Europe will be offered to the market into account.