Turkish steel producers continued to hold back from deep-sea scrap bookings because of limited sales of finished long steel, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday April 14.
The most recent cargo sale was at the end of last week, when a steel mill in the Iskenderun region paid an average price of $436 per tonne cfr for 35,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (95:5) and 15,000 tonnes of shredded.
The deal caused a
$5 per tonne correction in the daily scrap indices on April 9.
Butthe steel producers in the country stepped back from the deep-sea markets at the beginning of this week, because they failed to sell rebar, especially to the local market, due to the high prices.
"The domestic rebar market is very quiet in Turkey and this troubles the mills [when it comes] to booking more deep-sea scrap cargoes. The export rebar market is not supportive either," a Turkish mill source said.
"We haven't heard anything in the scrap markets for a while. It seems the rest of the week will not be any different," another Turkish source said.
As a result of the lack of trading activity, the daily scrap indices remained flat on Wednesday.
Fastmarkets' daily index for
steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), North Europe origin, cfr Turkey, was $423.29 per tonne on April 14, unchanged day on day.
And the daily index for
steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), US origin, cfr Turkey, was $429.26 per tonne on Wednesday, also static day on day, leaving the premium for US material over European scrap at $5.97 per tonne.