Even most flat steel spot traders in Turkey tried to keep offers stable, the weakening of the hot rolled coil (HRC) and scrap markets made a downturn unavoidable during the current week. The unstable currency, domestic economic issues as well as poor demand have further contributed to the negative outlook for the market.
“Trade in the domestic market is extremely low and it appears that this trend will continue. We attempted to avoid intentionally decreasing prices since in the current market there would be no profit if we did, but we had no choice due to producers' price reductions and the fall in the price of scrap,” a large trader told SteelOrbis.
As a consequence, workable domestic hot rolled sheet prices fell by $15-20/mt from the previous week to $700-730/mt ex-warehouse. Although bigger traders are offering at about $730/mt ex-warehouse, smaller and medium-sized traders prefer to offer at $700-720/mt ex-warehouse.
Most traders in the cold rolled sheet market have decided to lower prices compared to last week. According to market reports, current offers for cold rolled sheets vary at $840-860/mt ex-warehouse, compared to $840-880/mt ex-warehouse previously.