Turkiye's ferrous scrap imports rise 4.5% MoM in July

Over January-July, the country's ferrous scrap imports also rose 4.4% on year to 11.33 million tonnes, the TUIK data showed.

The growth in July was mainly attributed to a surge in exports by Turkiye's top steel scrap supplier, the United States, the data show. Turkiye's imports of US scrap skyrocketed by 284% on month and surged 57.7% on year to reach 440,840 tonnes.

Turkish steelmakers resumed deep-sea scrap procurement in July, following a weeks-long slowdown in buying that had drawn down their scrap inventories to low levels, Mysteel Global learned.

Meanwhile, imports from Turkiye's second largest scrap source, the Netherlands, also jumped 24.7% on month in July to reach 165,860 tonnes, though the volume was lower by a large 31.8% compared with the same month last year, TUIK data showed.

But the country's imports of Europe-origin scrap materials were generally constricted in July, with many countries' shipments to Turkiye falling that month, the data reflected.

For example, the import volume from the United Kingdom in July dropped by 11.2% from June and slumped 53.3% on year to 155,805 tonnes, while that from Russia plunged 50.7% and dropped 15.6% on year to 84,357 tonnes, according to the TUIK statistics.

The prices for European scrap also weakened overall in July, Mysteel Global learned. Turkiye's import price of HMS (80:20) scrap materials from Northern Europe averaged $374.5/t CIF excluding tax during July, lower by 6.5% from the average price of the previous month.

Written by Anthea Shi, shihui@mysteel.com

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com