<span>The CIS exporters do not plan to reduce prices so far, despite unfavourable longs market. Moreover, Ukrainian sellers have even managed to raise prices for January production by $10-25/t in two weeks. Currently the upward trend is supported by Turkish buyers, who have kept rebar and wire rod prices at $615-620/t FOB and $620-630/t FOB, respectively since mid November. Thus, they allow Ukrainian suppliers to scale up their quotations to comparable levels. Another important factor is that the trend is still going up in the segment of raw materials. <br> Besides, occasional purchases in the countries, where there is no seasonally low buying activity before winter, helps domestic producers of long products to stay up. But weak demand for construction steel from end-users in the main markets affects the current situation. Moreover, traders are still not very interested in purchases as they have restocked at the beginning of the upward trend (in tahe second half of October-the first half of November). <br> ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih, in turn, having increased prices for finished longs of January production to Levant countries to $600-615/t FOB, is still hoping that distributors from Iraq will be able to pay more. In particular, currently rebar is being offered to this destination at $625/t FOB against $615/t FOB two weeks ago. But such an offer is rare so it can not show the whole price trend in the Middle East. <br> At Caspian ports, Russian suppliers were ready to face difficulties amid extremely low demand for finished long products in Iran. So, they did not insist on the levels, which they planned to set in November – $630-635/t FOB, and fixed them at $625/t FOB. However, Iranian buyers are bidding at $610-615/t FOB and they are reluctant to accept the sellers’ announced quotations. In this situation, sellers find it senseless to cut prices, as the current ones at the Black Sea ports for the same products are quoted at $610-620t/ FOB. <br> Russian suppliers have not managed to lift offers in the Far East yet. The few bookings for wire rod from EvrazHolding are still not exceeding $605-610/t FOB (about $630/t C&F) in line with the past two weeks. The main customers are the Philippine ones, while other Asian countries are still inactive. At the same time offers of the material are made even at $615/t FOB, but no deals have been reported yet. <br> (Source: <a href="http://www.metalexpert-group.com/"><font color="#6099e9" size="3" face="Times New Roman">www.metalexpert-group.com</font></a> )</span>