Tuesday, February 22,
Black Sea billet prices rose this week and were likely to increase further as demand goes back to normal but concerns remained over political tensions in the Middle-East, traders and producers said.*
Traders quoted Black Sea billet free-on-board (fob) at $610-630/MT, compared with sales at $600-610/MT fob last week.
Due to political unrest some Egyptian ports closed and a few steel and steel scrap cargoes directed to the country were diverted to other destinations and sold at lower prices in the last two weeks, traders said.
But the political situation seemed more stable this week. Egyptian mills asked their suppliers to provide them with steel scrap and steel semi product as their operations are back to normal, Turkish producers said.
“The reason for higher demand is that some customers who had to buy material in the last 2- 3 weeks waited until now as they thought prices would go down due to the problems in Egypt,” a source at a steelmaker said.
Sale prices for Turkish rebar rose by $10 this week to $650-660 per tonne.
Demand for long steel products generally peaks in the second quarter of the year as the weather conditions in the northern hemisphere are more favorable for construction.
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