It is reported that steel market at Black Sea is heavily influenced by the political crises in Middle East. The situation has already directly influenced longs segment and created some uncertainties for flats segment.
The already weakening market for semis and rebars etc has been further hit this week.
As per market reports, steel billet quotations lost almost USD 30 per tonne to USD 40 per tonne.
Rebar prices also lost USD 10 per tonne to USD 30 per tonne.
Except decrease of market size by itself and chain reaction due to needs of products relocation.
It is also reported that terms and conditions of supplies to Middle East and further to Asia have been already impacted by higher insurance costs because of risk factor.
It is not clear as yet that how will the market and sellers react within allocation of larger volumes.
Flats products seem to be not seriously influenced yet, but future dynamics and impact are not clear. Although Ukrainian producers have given up their stance to realize more and more WoW and have started to look at numbers lower by USD 10 per tonne to USD 20 per tonne for HRC.
Quotes for all other items ie Russian HRC, plates and CR have remained unchanged last week.
But recently announced preliminary production data for Ukraine shows that despite of holidays steel output in January, 2011 is just a little bit lower than in December 2010 ie 2.864 million tonnes as against 2.901 million tonnes. So, there is a volume that can put a pressure on the market.