Zawya.com reported that Turkish steel plants have notified Saudi importers that they will halt construction steel exports to Saudi Arabia in the coming period due to unstable prices, especially the recent hike in scrap prices in global markets.
The reports citing Mr Ali Al Dayekh a Saudi steel importer state that the steel plants have halted deals for 40,000 tonnes of construction steel at last week"s price of USD 450 a tonne and they are asking now for USD 575 for one tonne. It added that the Turkish steel industry has seen a decline in output during the last months due to the shortage of scrap in international markets.
Turkish steel factories rely heavily on the use of scrap for steel manufacturing and the global prices of scrap have increased to USD 300 per tonne in the last days from USD 200 per tonne earlier.
Turkish steel plants have an annual production capacity of 12 million tonnes while their current annual output is 4 million tonne which is equal to Turkey"s domestic steel consumption.