Prices for steel billet in the major global markets either recovered or were stable during the week ended Friday January 25, due to the reduced availability of material from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and rising Turkish scrap prices.
One exception was Iran, where exporters continued to slash their offers in attempts to secure bookings in the shadow of United States trading sanctions.Billet buying interest generally remained soft in most global regions because of sluggish markets for long steel products.Fastmarkets' daily index for US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) scrap was $296.47 per tonne cfr Turkey on Friday, up by $13.87 per tonne week on week.CIS, TurkeyBillet export prices from the CIS surged at the end of the week, with most mills raising their offers after having filled their February order books with large-volume sales in previous weeks.CIS offers were heard at $420-425 per tonne fob Black Sea on Thursday, up by $15 per tonne from a week earlier.Several cargoes of Russia-origin billet were sold to North Africa at $410-415 per tonne fob Black Sea early in the week.Buyers in Egypt said that demand for imported billet remained weak, and submitted...