[SMM Steel] Turkish Steel Pressured: Longs Plunge on Trader Liquidation While Flats Stall Awaiting Quota Reset

Published: Oct 05, 2026 14:55 (GMT+8)

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[Turkey] The Turkish steel market operated under broad downward pressure last week. In the long products segment, aggressive discounting by traders liquidating stock for cash forced domestic mills to follow suit, pushing rebar ex-works prices down by 5 USD/tonne to 620 USD/tonne EXW (excluding VAT). By region, traders in Izmir cut offers to 610–615 USD/tonne EXW, prompting a major local producer to track the drop by cutting 10 USD/tonne to 615 USD/tonne EXW; mills across Iskenderun and Marmara similarly marked down offers by 5–10 USD/tonne. While low-cost positions built earlier allow traders to remain profitable despite price cuts, rising construction project costs and the simmering domestic investment fund crisis have heightened market anxieties over an accelerated seasonal demand slowdown. On the export side, rebar FOB export prices held flat at 615 USD/tonne FOB amid sluggish liquidity.

In the flat steel sector, following waves of concentrated order bookings over the preceding two to three weeks, domestic procurement ground to a halt, fueling market expectations that hot-rolled coil (HRC) may follow longs into a downward cycle. Although domestic HRC ex-works prices held nominally flat at 620 USD/tonne EXW, actual transactions were essentially frozen. On the export front, the market remained tightly focused on the reopening of the EU's Q4 import safeguard quotas; with 271,000 tonnes of Turkish HRC currently awaiting clearance, quota exhaustion risks pressured export prices down by 5 USD/tonne to 610 USD/tonne FOB. Meanwhile, imported HRC held steady at 555 USD/tonne CFR, seeing negligible transaction activity amid Chinese holiday closures and alternative origins being either sidelined or aggressively priced.

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