The global steel billet markets started to give negative signals, with prices in the major regions falling or just holding steady on softer demand during the working week from Monday March 25 to Friday March 29.
A very slight recovery was seen in Turkey's export and domestic markets, but demand in Southeast Asia and the rest of the Middle East was still limited.CIS, Turkey, EgyptTrading activity in the CIS export billet market revived early last week amid renewed demand from North Africa, and Algeria in particular, but the market started to weaken toward the end of the week.An Algerian long steel producer booked two lots of Russian billet, each of 20,000 tonnes, scheduled for shipment in April at $492 per tonne cfr.There was also a Ukrainian cargo of 15,000 tonnes scheduled for shipment in May, sold to another Algerian long steel mill at $475 per tonne cfr, equivalent to $450-455 per tonne fob Black Sea.Recent offers of April-rolling billet from major CIS mills went as low as $450 per tonne fob at the end of the week, from $460 per tonne a week earlier, with customers...