Turkish steelmakers have cut their capacity utilization rates to prevent the spread of Covid-19 among employees amid reduced demand for steel due to pandemic lockdown measures in the domestic and export markets.
Several Turkish long steelmakers stopped production in March and April, and some of them have not yet resumed production.
Maintenance breaks have reduced flat steel output in Turkey recently, with long and flat steel producer Isdemir currently taking a maintenance break at one of its blast furnaces feeding into flat steel production, while Colakoglu had a two-week maintenance shut-down in April.
Turkey has more than 50 million tonnes per year crude steel production capacity, and the reductions have taken about 11 million tonnes per year out of the installed capacity.
Turkey produced...