Turkey’s total crude steel production decreased by -11.8% year-on-year to 2.56 million tonnes in August, following a -10.4% on-year drop in July, affected by the continued decline in scrap-based output.

Electric arc furnace-based production in the country plummeted by -20.9% y-o-y in August to 1.61mt as the spread between prices of scrap and finished products narrowed. Meanwhile, integrated mills’ output rose 9.3% to 954,000t, Kallanish learns from the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD).

The downtrend in the Turkish steel industry, which has been evident since 2013 when the sector started losing its competitiveness on the global market, continued in August, TCUD says.

On a month-on-month basis, however, Turkey’s crude steel output went up by 1.1% in August as scrap-based production rose 2% but BOF-based production edged down -0.9%, TCUD notes. This follows a -10.7% decline in steel production in July over June.

In the eight months through August, the country’s total steel output fell -7% y-o-y to 21.29mt as EAF-based production dropped -13.5% to 13.98mt and BOF-based output increased 8.3% to 7.31mt.

Billet production in Turkey slipped -6% on-year to 15.72mt in January-August, while slab output went down -9.9% to 5.57mt, TCUD adds.