The European titanium market for alloy and scrap have dropped in price over the past week as an extended period of quiet prompted profit-taking from some domestic traders as well as cheaper export offer prices from Russia, according to industry sources.
European ferro-titanium suppliers dropped their offer prices and concluded deals at lower numbers, both on a spot and longer-term basis, which, in turn, encouraged ferro-alloy makers to back away from the scrap market and prompted slightly weaker scrap offers, market participants told Fastmarkets."We think there's a current surplus of alloy in Europe, particularly the lower quality Russian-produced material, which is trading at anything up to a $1.50-per-kg discount. That's obviously having a negative effect on any spot...