An uptick in Turkish scrap import prices, coupled with a week-long holiday in China to mark the country's 70th anniversary, provided support for steel billet prices in Southeast Asia over the past week, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday October 4.
Market participants were cautiously optimistic that billet prices had bottomed out."Ferrous scrap prices [in Turkey] moved up slightly this week and we hope we are seeing the bottom of the current downtrend [in billet prices], although it is unclear how the Chinese market will react after the Golden Week holiday [which runs October 1-7]," a trader in Southeast Asia said.Turkey's scrap import prices are considered to be a major indicator of scrap price trends because the country is the world's largest importer of steel scrap."It looks like billet prices have reached...