This week, Turkish hollow section producers have increased their prices even further, mainly due to the significant improvements witnessed in the hot rolled coil (HRC) and scrap segments. Market participants state that, as demand has been slower this week in both the export and domestic markets and since a decline in Chinese pricing has been observed since the middle of the week, there are growing concerns in the pipe market regarding the sustainability of the higher levels in the coming weeks.
Currently, the workable domestic prices for hollow sections stand at $700-750/mt ex-works, up from $680-700/mt ex-works in previous weeks.
“Demand is stable but sluggish. The difficulty is that the situation in the overall flats market is very unpredictable, so the majority of customers are waiting to see how the situation develops and how the Turkish market reacts,” one pipe producer told SteelOrbis.
Likewise, export prices have increased by $10-20/mt from previous weeks to $700-730/mt FOB.