<span>After continuous talks with foreign buyers, CIS slab producers have been forced to make significant reductions while closing deals for the material to be produced in Q3. The discounts have helped them to sell some volumes to North America and Turkey by now. Meanwhile, customers from Europe show no interest in the material, and those from SE Asia still prefer to wait and see in hope prices will go down further. <br> As a result, quotations of semis from Alchevsk SW have dropped by $30-50/t compared to early July. In particular, August material has been sold to North America and Turkey at $610/t FOB September delivery, which is some $655-660/t C&F and $635-640/t C&F including freight rates respectively. <br> Bids from customers in SE Asia are coming at $590/t FOB, and the supplier will probably have to accept this level to close its Q3 order book as soon as possible. <br> August semis output from Russia’s Severstal is available to North America at some $600-610/t FOB Saint Petersburg (shipment in September-early October). However, no deals have been reported so far. <br> MMK and NLMK are not exporting slabs at the moment because of poor demand and prefer to sell flats. For the same reason, Metinvest International S.A. has stopped selling Q3 products from Ilyich and Azovstal. <br> Asha SW is also out of the market due to production problems. Nevertheless, July slabs output (around 15,000 t) has been sold to Iran at $620-625/t FOB Astrakhan, Metal Expert learns. <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>