Turkish steel mills continued to book deep-sea scrap for June shipment, supported by strong export demand for rebar, market participants told Fastmarkets on Thursday April 22.
A steel mill in the Iskenderun region booked a Venezuelan cargo, consisting of 25,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20), at $424.50 per tonne cfr.
This compared with the most recent Baltic Sea cargo, which was booked at $427 per tonne cfr on HMS 1&2 (80:20) basis and a European cargo of 22,500 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) and 12,500 tonnes of a mixture of plate and structural (P&S) and HMS 1 sold at an average price of $429 per tonne cfr.
Fastmarkets' daily scrap indices, however, remained flat because the Venezuela is not a traditional origin for scrap.
Fastmarkets' daily index for steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), North Europe origin, cfr Turkey was calculated at $425.52 per tonne on Thursday April 22, unchanged day on day.
And the daily index for steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), US origin, cfr Turkey was $431.49 per tonne on Thursday, also static day on day, leaving the premium for US material over European scrap at $5.97 per tonne.
Demand for rebar in the export market has encouraged the mills to book more scrap over the past week.
"We were expecting prices to edge up further, because demand [for rebar] from export outlets is increasing and it seems the situation will continue improving. I think we will soon see another $10-per-tonne increase in prices," a Turkish trading source told Fastmarkets.