It is reported that Turkish exporters having cut offers of rebar by USD 10 per tonne to USD 15 per tonne last week have managed to raise sales, supported by increased domestic mills’ prices for rebar in Egypt which is currently their major sales market.
At the same time, the suppliers have decreased the upper end of the rebar price range by USD 5 per tonne to USD 510 per tonne to USD 525 per tonne fob since Friday, willing to sell maximum volumes while demand is strong. In particular, most deals with Egyptian buyers are made at USD 510 per tonne to USD 520 per tonne fob and small lots of the product have been sold to Iraq at USD 510 per tonne to USD 515 per tonne EXW.
In general, Turkish exporters are in a rather difficult situation. In December, they had to decrease exports by 7%, to 493,700 tonnes. The total sales dropped by 15%, to 8.7 million tonne last year. Yet, the decreases would have been even larger if producers had failed to raise shipments to North Africa and Iraq. In particular, exports of Turkish rebar to Egypt and Libya boomed by 34 and 11 times, to 2.2 million tonne and 0.6 million tonne respectively and shipments to Iraq almost doubled, to 0.76 million tonne.