Reuters reported that steel billet prices in the Black Sea and Turkish market gained ground as scrap prices climbed higher and merchants returned after depleting their stocks.
Traders said that mills were offering Black Sea FOB billet at around USD 510 per tonne to USD 520 per tonne compared with USD 480 per tonne to USD 495 per tonne last week. The price of scrap, a key ingredient in the making of billet, rose to USD 340 per tonne 350 per tonne from around USD 330 per tonne.
On the London Metal Exchange, 3 month Mediterranean billet FMD3=LX traded at USD 470 per tonne, its highest since May 14 and compared with USD 445 per tonne last Friday.
A Turkey based trader said that the rise is mainly due to the fact that scrap prices have gone up. There were a couple of big scrap purchases in Turkey, which has given the scrap dealers the upper hand in pricing.
Traders said that there was some decent buying from merchants, who have been selling from their inventories and now had to come back to the market to replenish them. Buying was mostly coming from the Middle East and North Africa.
One trader said that merchants are now in a position where they have to buy what they sell to their consumers, there are no stocks. So we have demand equal to the real consumption, but I don't see anyone building stocks.
He said that the market was still jittery and hence traders refrained from accumulating stocks as cloudy economic growth outlook in the United States as well as Europe and signs of slowdown in China raised uncertainty. But in China, steel prices started rising after slumping for the past 3 months even though mills and traders are unsure about the sustainability of the climb.