A surge in buying activity from both end-users and stockists amid new contracts for scrap at higher prices has untied local producers’ hands. Moreover, taking into account poor demand for construction steel in the export market, most of them have focused on domestic sales. Steel traders say some suppliers, expecting prices for the material will rise further, are in no hurry to sell large amounts.
In particular, Turkish steelmakers have increased domestic offers of June rolling of rebar in several stages over the week by TRY 39-45/t ($22-25/t), to TRY 1,280-1,295/t EXW. However, quotations in the US dollar terms have added only $15-18/t, and increased to $707-715/t EXW due to weaker lira. Kardemir sold only 10,000 t of rebar at $700/t (TRY 1,256/t) EXW at the exchange rate $1 = TRY 1.52 at the beginning of the week. A few days later it has been back quoting $709/t (TRY 1,285/t) EXW. Yet, there are too few orders to close sales.
End-users are still interested in mesh-quality wire rod, so sellers have almost closed June order books already. As a result, suppliers of the material have pushed their quotations up by another $15/t (TRY 40/t) in a week, keeping them by $27-36/t (TRY 45-50/t) higher than rebar prices. However, steel traders think demand will not be as strong as it was and producers will have to tame their appetites soon.
Billet has gained only $10/t in a week in Turkey, which is probably due to weaker buying activity in the segment compared to longs market. Thus, deals are reported for small lots of billet now. In the middle of the week Kardemir returned to the market offering billet by $52/t higher than mid-April levels, at $650/t EXW (St 37) and $655/t EXW (AIII).
( Source: www.metalexper-group.com )