The CIS producers kept their prices unchanged in October and early November with the help from the strong Far East and the Southeast Asian markets. The offers given early this week were at the level of $495-500/mt FOB Black Sea. However, there were some offers in the market at the level of $515-520/mt FOB towards the middle of the week, even though they failed to attract interest. The Iranian market is still important, especially for Russian billet. However, trading activity with this market has been difficult due to financial problems which have their origin in political issues. However, the Russian producers have been concluding their best-priced sales to the Far East countries from the Russian Far East ports. The Russian producers' offers for shipments from Russia's Far East ports have increased to a level of $550/mt FOB.
The Turkish producers, also, have started to increase their billet prices in both their domestic and export markets, as they have done with longs prices. The producers have been offering at the price level of $530-540/mt FOB in the export market. The latest sale heard in the market was a cargo of 200 mm x 200 mm billet to Iran at the price level of nearly $540/mt FOB. New offers are above this level.
Looking at the import market, CIS origin billets have been offered to Turkey at the price level of $520-530/mt CFR (Marmara, Izmir, Iskenderun). The Turkish rolling mills have not been inclined to make billet purchases at these price levels, despite the activity seen in the longs market. Towards the end of the week buyers started to behave in a more positive manner to offers; however, the CIS producers increased their prices further to $535-545/mt CFR (Marmara, Izmir, Iskenderun).
Billet prices for rebar and merchant bar production in the local Italian market were at €365-375/mt ($533-547/mt) delivered to rolling mill in northern Italy, on 60-day open account basis, excluding VAT. The sluggishness in Italy's longs market has been reflected in the Italian domestic billet market. Billet purchases from Turkey and the CIS have been quite slow since October. As of November, import movement from the countries in question has almost stopped. In the absence of any developments in Europe, no new momentum is expected as regards billet imports in Italy.
The global billet market has been moving on a strong trend for a long time now. However, more and more activity has been seen in recent days. The CIS producers have been collecting demands for late December from the Black Sea. A strong level of demand is currently heard from the Middle East, following the rise in demand from Southeast Asia and the Far East. As a result, most market players predict that the Mediterranean and the Black Sea billet markets will close the year strongly.