Turkish rebar prices have been increasing each day since the Turkish government’s statements regarding the reconstruction of earthquake-hit cities in 3-4 months last week.

This has also triggered scrap suppliers to increase their prices and back off from the market. Some rebar producers are halting rebar sales in both domestic and export markets since the beginning of the week. They initially want to see where their scrap costs will reach. The ones that are keeping sales open are offering rebar at $740-750/tonne fob actual weight in the export markets on Thursday. Offers for mesh-quality wire rod, meanwhile, were at $750-760/t fob.

While export demand is yet to be sufficient, exports are not Turkish mills’ initial focus at the moment. Some market participants even believe that exports should be officially limited during the reconstruction of earthquake-hit cities. Besides these 11 cities, there are also buildings all over Turkey that are not earthquake resistant and need to be reconstructed.

Although there are inquiries for Turkish rebars in the EU, South America and Africa, Turkish mills do not think that they will buy at these levels.

A mill tells Kallanish: "We have already lost many export markets. We have increased our prices very sharply, thus current prices became far from acceptable for buyers. Latest deals were concluded at $700-710/t fob actual weight."

Some small tonnage bookings were concluded to Yemen, Israel, South America and Africa recently.

In Turkey’s domestic market, rebar is offered at $750-760/t ex-works levels, up from $710-720/t a week ago. In the south, even offers at $760-777/t are available. While demand remains moderate, end-users are seen concluding purchases. Mills are selling around 30,000-40,000t of rebars on a daily basis.

In the scrap market, price rises continued Thursday on two deep-sea bookings. A southern mill bought US-origin cargo comprising 11,000t of HMS 1&2 85:15 at $455/t, 14,000t of shredded at $470/t and 7k of P&S at $473/t cfr. A Marmara mill bought EU-origin HMS 1&2 80:20 at $440/t cfr.