Turkish long steel prices weaken on low demand

Prices for long steel products in Turkey have weakened over the past seven days due to low demand in the country’s domestic and export markets.

Early in the week, local producer Kardemir reduced its rebar price by TRY41 ($20) to TRY1,103-1,163 ($550-580) per tonne with effect from Tuesday September 24.

Turkish traders believe that prices still have some room to fall in the domestic market. Current levels are $600-605 per tonne, they said, but they expect the $580 per tonne level to be reached soon.

The country’s rebar export price remained unchanged at $575-580 per tonne fob on September 26.

Merchant bar export prices declined by $10 per tonne, however, to $610-630 per tonne fob, due to low demand.

Prices for merchant bars are determined by input costs, mostly billet, one market participant noted. Prices are unlikely to fall soon unless billet hits the $500 per tonne cfr level, he added.

Billet import prices to Turkey were $510-520 per tonne cfr this week, slightly up from last week’s $510-515 per tonne cfr.

The country’s billet export price remained unchanged at $520-530 per tonne fob.

Serife Durmus
sdurmus@steelfirst.com