[SMM Steel] Turkish Billet: Black Sea Bottlenecks and Delays Empower Local Mills to Hike Prices and Fill Supply Deficit

Published: Oct 14, 2026 15:57 (GMT+8)

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[Turkey] Over the past two weeks, elevated freight rates, seasonal weakness in construction demand, and conflict-induced logistical hurdles have constrained global billet trade, confining market activity to localized hubs. With Russian spot allocations effectively cut off, Turkish domestic mills seized bargaining leverage, raising prices and releasing volume to bridge the market shortfall. In pricing, Turkish billet import prices held steady at 520 USD/tonne CFR, while domestic ex-works prices held flat at 570 USD/tonne EXW. On supply and trade dynamics, Turkish buyers remain virtually unable to procure Russian spot cargoes or enforce delivery on long-dated contracts signed in July. Paralyzed Black Sea shipping lanes and worsening congestion at Baltic ports—driven by prioritized grain shipments—have forced major Russian suppliers to defer delivery schedules out to January. Against this backdrop, a major integrated mill in Turkey's Karabuk region opened order books, successfully allocating at least 100,000 tonnes of billet at 565–570 USD/tonne EXW to temporarily plug the supply void left by Russian origins. Overall, however, amid sluggish long steel export demand and ongoing downward corrections in local scrap and rebar prices, buyer acceptance of higher-priced material remains broadly restricted.

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