Having concluded very few deep sea scrap bookings last week, Turkish mills have not made any deep sea scrap bookings and even demand for short sea scrap in Turkey, which was strong at the beginning of last week, has weakened significantly this week.
Turkish steel producers still have not received a positive response from the US authorities regarding their expectation of a revision of the 50 percent duty on steel imports from Turkey to 25 percent, which is implied to all the other countries subject to Section 232 investigation. Amid weak finished steel sales in their domestic market, trade measures and the competition in the global market are hindering Turkish mills from making high volume sales to export markets. Meanwhile, the ongoing decline in ex-China steel offers to global markets is preventing Turkish mills from concluding deals to Far East and also causing buyers in the global market to postpone their bookings. Under these circumstances, Turkish steel producers are unlikely to accept the transaction price level of the recent deep sea scrap deals they concluded for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap at $335/mt CFR. Instead, Turkish mills are expected to give priority to their finished steel sales before making new scrap bookings and to determine their strategies for scrap bookings depending on their finished steel sales.