By Paul Ploumis (ScrapMonster Author)

November 17, 2015 02:24:37 AM

ANKARA (Scrap Monster): The most recent statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) suggests huge drop in steel scrap imports by the country during the month of September this year.

According to TUIK data, Turkey imported 1.01 million tons of steel scrap during Sep ’15. The imports were down sharply by 397% when matched with the imports during the same month a year before. When compared with the previous month, the imports during Sep ’15 were down marginally by 0.3%. The value of scrap imports during the month amounted to $2.34 billion, down by nearly 62% year-on-year. The steel scrap import value dropped by 9.66% when compared with the previous month.

The Turkish steel scrap imports totaled 12.04 million tons during the initial nine-month period of the current year. The imports were down by 18% when compared with the previous year. The Turkish steel scrap imports had totaled 14.68 million tons during Jan-Sep ’14. The cumulative value of imports during the nine-month period totaled $34 billion, considerably down by 38.7% when matched with those in 2014.

Meantime, trade sources indicate that domestic steel scrap demand in Turkey has started to pick up, resulting in significant upside in scrap import prices recently. The November first week data suggests that average scrap import price of Turkish HMS 1/2 80:20 scrap advanced by $10 week-on-week to $193 per ton CFR.

The uptick in Turkish scrap demand is expected last until next February. This is mainly on account of the new government legislation that requires Turkish producers to export all of the products that are produced out of imported Chinese billets within nine months. As a result, more producers have stopped buying billets and have switched to scrap.