This week prices have been decreasing in the majority of regions of the world and the competition became stronger, especially in Mediterranean region.
In particular CIS billet suppliers had to cut prices more considerably after they learnt Turkish and South European suppliers offered and sold material at $550-560/fob. Considering this offer prices for billet they.d like to start with ($580-590/t fob Black Sea) seem too high. The situation will be clearer next week but it is likely that in a week or two prices at least for semis could reach the bottom. Russian and Ukrainian coils/sheets producers are out of the market except Ilyich that continue to cut quotations unofficially: this week . by $20/t. This will inevitably hurt other suppliers. CIS scrap suppliers this week have sold some lots to Turkey and they think that demand will start to restore since the mid of May. Domestic prices for scrap in CIS have been going down so exporters are paying less to local scrap collectors.
In Turkey longs suppliers continued to decrease export prices for rebar/WR and billet (- $5-10/t). But considering export prices for rebar of South European exporters it is obvious that next week they will have to make another correction . at least to $605-620/t fob. In flats segment Erdemir decided to go for export. But players believe some demand will be only from India and Brazil. Scrap market players believe that prices won.t fall by more than $15/t and demand will get stronger in a week or two.
In the Middle East and North Africa local prices went down. Thus, in Iran rebar quatations dropped to $680-710/t exw and in Egypt . to $635-650/t exw that caused difficulties for foreign billet suppliers. In Iran another negative factor is excess of billets at stocks in northern ports.
(Source: metal expert- group.com)