Posted on 05 Aug 2020
Arrivals of hot rolled flat steel products into Turkey continued to increase in June, gaining enough to bring January-June import volumes almost in line with first-half-of-2019 intake.
June arrivals were booked mainly in April when Covid-19 restriction measures curbed demand in the majority of traditional export and domestic markets. This increased supply exponentially and subsequently pushed prices down. As a result, importers in Turkey were spoilt for choice of suppliers, and booked vast volumes at highly competitive prices, a lot of which was European material, Kallanish notes.
June arrivals of flat carbon steel products under HS code 7208 into Turkey totalled 473,589 tonnes, twice the volume imported in May and 39.3% up on-year, Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) data show. Six-month imports totalled 1.92 million tonnes, just -7.1% down from the corresponding period of 2019, after months of decline.
Imports of HR flat products under 3mm thickness falling under HS code 720839 totalled 214,748t, more than double May’s arrivals and 25% up on-year. Russian-origin shipments returned close to their pre-Covid-19 levels at 96,019t, trebling over May and just under treble June 2019 volumes. Japan supplied the second-largest volume of 41,694t in June, 40 times May volumes and double over June 2019. Ukraine-origin arrivals fell -6.2% on-month but rose 2.9% on-year to 39,158t.
Import volumes of HR unpickled wide strip of 3-4.75mm thickness (HS code 720838) rebounded considerably. At 73,283t, they were almost three times May volumes and just -2% down on-year. France overtook Russia as the largest supplier at 21,409t, five times May volumes and double on June 2019. Russia-origin intake more than trebled on May and on-year to 20,468t, while Ukraine supplied 15,774t, up 53.8% on-month and 35.2% up on-year.
March imports of hot rolled coil/plate with 4.75-10mm thickness (HS code 720837) also more than doubled on-month at 56,503t, doubling on-year too. France was again the largest supplier at 27,798t, again more than doubling May volumes, and increasing them on-year by almost six times. The UK supplied 11,082t and Russia 6,246t.
Source:Kallanish
