Considering that demand has increased in the past few weeks, Romanian traders in need of stock expressed an interest in importing, particularly from Turkey and Egypt. Nonetheless, according to market players, trade has begun to decline this week and the market has remained quiet, resulting in price stability. Furthermore, the unfavorable outlook during the week has led to a predicted fall in pricing for the approaching week.
According to reports, Turkey has sold around 2,000-3,000 mt of rebar to Romania at $580/mt FOB, while Egypt sold approximately 5,000-6,000 mt of rebar to Romania at $600/mt FOB. However, these deals have not yet been verified as of the time of publication.
Meanwhile, ex-Turkey offers this week have been reported at €565-585/mt CFR Romania, up from €555-580/mt CFR last week, based on a €1 = $1.09 exchange rate and freight cost of €25-30/mt. Accordingly, the abovementioned deal is most likely from previous weeks, as Turkish mills no longer offer at those levels.
In contrast, the previous week's ex-Egypt offers for rebar and wire rod have been reduced by €10/mt and €15/mt to €565/mt CFR and €575/mt CFR, respectively. In a similar vein, offers for rebar from ex-Moldova and ex-Bulgaria have decreased from €620-630/mt CPT and €640-650/mt CPT the previous week to €600-610/mt CPT and €630-640/mt CPT, respectively.
On the other hand, the price of rebar from the sole domestic mill in the local market has stayed the same at €630/mt ex-works. Similarly, Romanian rebar traders have given the same prices as last week, at €610-635/mt ex-warehouse.
In the wire rod market, most traders have maintained their offers from the previous week, although the lack of demand has continued to have a detrimental impact.
“Even though we maintained stable prices, a decline is going to happen since wire rod demand is in free fall,” a bigger trader told SteelOrbis.
According to reports, current offers for wire rods have remained stable at €610-625/mt ex-warehouse.