Turkey's steel import volumes plunged by a third in Nov '16

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The monthly statistics released by the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD) suggests significant decline in steel import volumes by the country during the month of November last year. The cumulative imports during the initial eleven-month period too declined sharply.

According to TCUD data, Turkey’s steel imports totaled 1.17 million mt in Nov ’16. This is considerably lower by 31.3% when matched with the same month a year before. The Turkish steel imports had totaled 1.7 million mt during November 2015. When matched with the prior month, the steel imports during November were down marginally by nearly 6.5%. The country had imported 1.25 million mt of steel during October last year.

The Turkish imports of semi-finished steel dropped sharply by 52.4% year-on-year to 330,900 mt. The imports of flat steel too have declined by 16.4% over the year to total 653,000 mt. Also, long steel products import registered 22.3% decline to 111,000 mt during November last year. The volume of exports totaled 112% of import volume during the month. It must be noted that the exports had constituted only 85% of import volume during November 2015.

During the initial eleven-month period last year, Turkey imported 16.35 million mt of steel products. The imports during the period were down by nearly 7% year-on-year. Among them, the semi-finished imports totaled 5.82 million mt, whereas the flat steel imports totaled 8.03 million mt. The semi-finished steel imports were down by 21% over the year, whereas the flat steel imports increased marginally by over 3% when matched with the previous year. The volume of steel exports totaled 97% of the import volumes during Jan-Nov ’16.

The country’s steel imports had plunged by 23% to 1.25 million metric tons during the month of October. The imports from China plummeted by nearly 63% year-on-year to 133,160 metric tons. The billets imports from China too dropped considerably by 95% year-on-year to 10,600 metric tons. The country’s semi-finished steel imports totaled 415,500 metric tons, down 38.5% year-on-year. Also, the imports of flat steel products registered 13% decline year-on-year to total 626,400 metric tons. The Turkish steel export volume had totaled 1.4 million metric tons in October.

Turkey’s steel scrap imports in Oct ’16 totaled 1.236 million tons. When compared with the imports during the same month a year before, the Oct ’16 imports were sharply higher by nearly 7%. The Turkish ferrous scrap imports had totaled 1.155 million tons during October 2015. However, when compared with the previous month, the imports during October this year were down by 10.3%. The country had imported 1.384 million tons in September this year. The monthly imports were valued at USD $283.096 million. The unit import price was up by nearly 2% from USD 224.6 per ton a month before to USD 229.0 per ton in October.

The cumulative steel scrap imports by the country during the initial ten-month period of the year totaled 14.155 million tons. The imports were up by 7.2% over the previous year. The largest exporter of steel scrap to Turkey during the ten-month period of the year was the US. The imports from the US dropped by nearly 9% month-on-month to 2.688 million tons. The country accounted for almost one-fifth of the total imports by Turkey during this period. The second largest supplier was Russia. The imports from Russia surged higher by almost 10% over the previous month to total 2.270 million tons. In third place was the UK with 2.038 million tons.