<span>The situation in the Turkish plate market remains unchanged: end users and stockists continue to buy small lots of the material, and foreign suppliers mostly keep prices stable hoping for an upswing in demand before Ramadan or give slight discounts intending to attract consumers. Nevertheless, steel traders say they can buy some more volumes ahead of the holidays, so prices for plate may still increase, while in August the market will be in a lull. <br> In particular, a distributor of September rolling of plate from Alchevsk SW has preferred not to revise prices. Probably, it mostly counted on sales in alternative outlets, as its products with long delivery period are not very attractive for Turkish buyers given that Erdemir is offering September output and has cut quotations by $30/t in two weeks amid falling prices for other HR flats within the country. As a result, even reduction from distributors of August output from Ilyich (minus $10/t from the lower end) and shorter delivery time attract no interest from buyers now since the materia is priced on the same level even excluding 9% import duty. <br> Sellers of plate from DMZ stay away from the market and will be back with new prices only by next week. However, buyers report they will consider offers only with at least $15/t discounts considering prices of their competitors, including Colakoglu. <br> As for EU suppliers, they are still focused mainly on local sales, so their material is not available in the market. Yet, steel traders believe the sellers may start offering plate to Turkey if they want to sell big quantities by August, which is the holiday period. <br> ( Source: <a href="http://www.metalexpert-group.com/"><span><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">www.metalexpert-group.com</font></span></a> )</span>