This week in the Turkish flat steel spot market, while larger and smaller-sized traders chose to slightly lower their prices, medium-sized traders maintained their offers unchanged. The cause for the downturn is the weak mood in the pricing of hot rolled coil (HRC) and the scrap market. In addition, low local demand and continuing financial issues in the domestic market have contributed to traders' concerns that a downward trend will continue to put pressure on prices in the coming weeks.
“We made around a $10-20/mt cut in prices this week since the demand side is really poor, and we frequently hear from consumers that their demand is similarly weak. Also, when we look at our sales levels, we see that our monthly tonnage has been reduced by at least half,” a large trader told SteelOrbis
Over the past week, prices for domestic hot rolled sheets have decreased by $10/mt to $650-670/mt ex-warehouse. According to reports, the bigger and medium-sized traders are offering at around $660-670/mt ex-warehouse, and smaller traders are selling at around $650/mt ex-warehouse.
On the other hand, in the cold rolled sheet market, most traders are offering at around $780-800/mt ex-warehouse, versus $780-820/mt ex-warehouse seen last week.