Foreign buyers still show slack demand for Turkish rebar and square billet in view of unstable political situation in the Middle East and North Africa, so the Turks have had to cut their offers by $5-10/t. Besides, Turkish mills are purchasing scrap at lower prices now. At the same time, they have no problems selling wire rod, as foreign buyers, in particular American and African ones, still express interest in it. So, export quotations of wire rod have remained unchanged.
In particular, Turkish mills are offering their rebar abroad at $660-675/t FOB now against $665-685/t FOB last week. Traders say some stockists, who need to sell more actively, are ready to reduce their offers to $655/t FOB.
Small lots of rebar are still purchased mainly by Middle Eastern buyers. In particular, Emirati and Saudi customers booked small batches of the material at the end of March at $660-665/t FOB actual weight basis ($680-685/t C&F Dubai theoretical weight basis) and $660-670/t FOB actual weight basis ($675-680/t C&F Jeddah theoretical weight basis), respectively. Iraqi and Kuwaiti buyers also consider current quotations of Turkish rebar attractive. However, construction activity has somewhat weakened in Kuwait. At the same time, Yemeni and Libyan consumers mostly do no business in view of political disturbances. Market operators believe suppliers should not expect better demand from Egypt, as construction activity is still minimal in the country and domestic prices look more attractive than import ones.
As for US buyers, they are in no hurry to sign new deals on Turkish rebar as their stocks are full of previously imported material.
At the same time, demand for wire rod from foreign and domestic buyers is still much stronger than for other longs. So, Turkish producers are quite able to keep their export prices unchanged w-o-w, $40/t above the rebar offers. In particular, traders report that mostly buyers from Africa, Central and South America were showing interest in the material in late March. For reference, Isdemir's quotations of mesh-quality wire rod are still the highest ones – $740/t FOB. The producer has probably set its prices that high also in view of limited volumes of the material it has.
Demand for billet is not high, but quite stable. As a result, only bottom end of the price range for square billet has decreased over the week. Now the billet is quoted by a mere $30/t lower than rebar. Nevertheless, market participants report that a batch of over 10,000 tonnes has been sold to Saudi Arabia at about $640-645/t FOB. At the same time, buyers from other countries, including UAE, are bidding at $630-635/t FOB at most. Quotations of April casting of square billet from CIS producers and traders have remained unchanged and are still unattractive to Turkish re-rollers
( Source: www.metalexperts-group.com )