Posted on 09 Mar 2020
Turkish hot rolled coil buyers continued to shun local mills' offers last week, largely stocking up on imported material instead, Kallanish hears.
Amid increasing volatility stemming from the Covid-19 outbreak, and geopolitical and economic tensions, Turkish re-rollers and processors managed to book CIS and South Korean material for May delivery. This was similar to what Turkish suppliers are offering at the moment. As offers remained in the $500-520/tonne ex-works range, some buyers opted for imports instead.
A large lot of CIS material from a single supplier was booked at $475-489/t cfr, for May arrival. Another, 30,000t lot of Korean HRC was booked at $490/t cfr, also for May arrival.
With uncertainty increasing and end-user margins continuing to shrink, Turkish suppliers are expected to reduce offers, which they have held practically unchanged for the past five weeks. Some concessions were expected to be made last week but with lead-times spanning a considerably long two months, sellers appeared to wait, and buyers to look for import alternatives.
The latter are likely to increase, as Asian mills continue to explore new directions amid collapsed domestic markets, as they await their recovery. Japanese and South Korean offers of HRC are now at $450-460/t fob, with Indian quotes only slightly higher, traders note. With lower-priced CIS slab purchases last week, and the possibility of more, “…Turkish mills will have to reduce prices if they want to compete with imports effectively,” one trader concludes.
Source:Kallanish
