Turkish Steel producers make a cautious attempt to lift HRC prices

CHINA February 17 2016 5:35 PM

ANKARA (Scrap Register): Turkish steel producers made a cautious attempt to lift their HRC asking prices by about $5 a ton in the hope that a price floor had already been reached in December, driven by low stock levels in the supply chain and higher Chinese export offers, as per the Steel Index.

However, demand remained low, and HRC continued trading within the $310-320 a ton range during the month, while large orders commanded prices closer to $300 a ton. TSI’s HRC index closed the month at $313 a ton, marginally higher than at the end of December. 

The Turkish Ministry of Economy announced anti-dumping duties on HRC imports from China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and France. The largest duties were imposed on Chinese material, ranging from 15.5% to 35.2%, while duties on Russian producers were set between 9.4%- 13.7%. 

Commenting on the investigation, the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD) noted that during January-November 2015 flat steel imports from China increased by nearly twelve fold to 436kt whilst imports from Russia more than doubled to 1.2 million tons (both y-o-y). 

Turkey produced 31.5 million tons of crude steel in 2015, down 7.4% from 2014. The split in output between EAF and BOF producers was 20.28 million tons (-14% y-o-y) and 11.03 million tons (+7.3% y-o-y) respectively, TCUD reported.