Falling scrap costs in Turkey as well as low demand in the major sales outlets negatively affected steel billet producers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the first week of February.
Chinese customers' cancelling orders stoked negative sentiment in and added pressure to the Asian market.Up to 100,000 tonnesof steel billet initially orderedfor China is now being offered to Southeast Asia at lower prices due to the activity slowdown in China amid the Lunar-New-Year holiday extension following the the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.