Billet import volumes into Turkey have fallen over the past three years, with the producers opting to buy scrap because the price margin between these two products has widened since the second half of 2016, making scrap imports more profitable.
In 2015, Turkey imported 7.85 million tonnes of steel billet, while scrap imports totaled 16.25 million tonnes in the same year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (T?oeIK).China and the CIS region were the major sources for the semi-finished product, while the United States was the principal scrap supplier.Metal Bulletin's annual average price assessment for Turkish import billet was $342.39 per tonne cfr in 2015, while the annual average daily index for US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) scrap was $241.89 per tonne cfr. The average annual margin between the two prices in 2015 was $100.50 per tonne.In 2016, the margin between the two prices started to increase gradually and the annual average surged to $105.58 per tonne. With this, billet imports into the country dropped to 6.12 million tonnes, while scrap volumes rose to 17.72 million tonnes, according to T?oeIK data.And 2017 proved to be a turning point for the billet...