Turkey: Imported Scrap Prices Fall Marginally

SteelMint learned from industry participants that Turkish steel mills have slowed down a little this week after witnessing a flurry of cargoes last week. Imported scrap prices moved down marginally in recent trades reported while the disparity between supplier's expectations and buyers bid results in price rally to stop which was seen on the back of US tariff cuts in the market.

In a recent deal, Baltic origin recycler heard to have sold HMS 1&2 (80:20) at USD 306/MT, CFR Turkey to the Izmir based steelmaker. However, earlier one cargo was sold comprising HMS 1&2 (90:10) at USD 313/MT, CFR Turkey.

After normalizing these deals, SteelMint's assessment of US origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) scrap has lowered to USD 307-308/MT, CFR Turkey, down by USD 5-6/MT against the short term price peak achieved last week. In line with this, an assessment of Europe origin HMS stands at around USD 303-305/MT, CFR. A premium of US material over Northern European scrap stands at around USD 4-5/MT.

The last deal was concluded at surprisingly lower levels, it was being expected that steelmakers might continue restocking scrap before going for more than a weeks' holidays on account of Ramadan starting from Friday.

In the beginning of the week, one Iskenderun based steelmaker booked a US cargo, comprising 11,000 MT of HMS 1&2 (90:10), 4,500 MT of Shredded and 2,500 MT of P&S at an average price of USD 315/MT, CFR.

Turkish rebar and billet export offers jumped last week on US tariff cut and remained almost stable this week. However, strong buying interest has not seen yet.