Turkish steel mills continued their deep-sea scrap purchases for July shipment at slightly higher prices on Wednesday June 9, having only just resumed buying activity on Tuesday after a near-two-week break, market participants told Fastmarkets.
A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a Baltic Sea cargo, comprising HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $498 and bonus scrap at $508 per tonne cfr.
The same mill also booked a UK cargo, comprising HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $504 per tonne and shredded at $524 per tonne cfr.
The composition of the cargoes was not clear at the time of publication.
A steel mill in the Izmir region, meanwhile, booked a UK cargo of 30,000 tonnes of shredded at $521 per tonne cfr on Wednesday.
Shredded scrap usually trades at a $5 per tonne premium over HMS 1&2 (80:20), but the shortage of material has pushed the premium to $20 per tonne, according to market participants.
As a result of the fresh transactions, the daily scrap indices went up further on Wednesday June 9.
Fastmarkets' daily index for steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), North Europe origin, cfr Turkey was calculated at $501.60 per tonne on Wednesday, up by $2.32 per tonne day on day.
The daily index for steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), US origin, cfr Turkey was $507.78 per tonne, up by $2.33 per tonne, putting the premium for US material over European scrap at $6.18 per tonne on June 9, compared with $6.17 per tonne on June 8.
The reason behind the rise in scrap bookings was the sudden recovery in finished long steel sales in Turkey's domestic and export markets.
The Marmara mill that booked two deep-sea cargoes was heard selling rebar to Canada at $745 per tonne fob and to the United States at $750 per tonne fob on an actual-weight basis.
Fastmarkets'
weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), export, fob main port Turkey, was $730-740 per tonne fob on June 3, down from $750-760 per tonne a week earlier.