The daily Davis Index for Turkish imports of US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) declined by $2.33/mt to $422.67/mt cfr on Friday amid a sustained standoff between buyers and sellers.
Trading remained slow in the Turkish imported ferrous scrap market. Mills have focused most of their attention on securing short-sea cargoes this week and the most recent one concluded out of Ukraine at $395/mt cfr Turkey for a small volume of HMS 1&2 (90:10).
Mills have switched to purchases from the Azov-Black Sea basin in an attempt to delay deep-sea cargo bookings. Seller sentiment is on the rebound with rumors of bulk sales to Europe at over $440/mt cfr and supplier hopes that the Turkish market could soon rebound to over $450/mt cfr.
Still, current offers appear to be at around $425/mt cfr for HMS 1&2 (80:20) from the Baltic region. A number of deep-sea suppliers have withdrawn offers to Turkey, anticipating a price rebound as early as next week.
In Asian bulk markets, two cargoes comprising a total of 75,000mt were sold from the US West Coast to South Korea at an #1 HMS price level of $431-432/mt cfr. The sale prices suggest an $8/mt increase in daily fob price levels.
In Turkey’s domestic market, mills lowered purchase prices for shipbreaking scrap by $5/mt to $410/mt delivered.
Daily domestic spot rebar prices in Turkey decreased by TRY30-40/mt ($4-5.50/mt) to TRY5,300-5,360/mt ex-works on Friday amid currency fluctuations. Icdas reduced its local rebar prices by TRY190/mt to TRY5,510/mt ex-works Biga and TRY5,590/mt ex-works Istanbul. All domestic prices include 18pc VAT.
Local rebar sales picked up on Friday and an Izmir-based mill sold around 30,000mt at prevailing price levels.
($1=TRY7.23)