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US steel long products market waits for scrap fall
February 10, 2012 - 00:04 GMT
Location:
New York
KEYWORDS:
rebar
,
wire rod
,
China
,
Italy
,
Turkey
,
Mexico
,
imports
,
scrap prices
,
traders
Steel buyers concerned about falling scrap prices are hesitant to enter the import market despite competitive long product offerings from China, Italy, Turkey and Mexico, sources said.
"The market is soft right now, mainly due to falling scrap prices," said one steel trader. "That has some people wary about taking a bet on imports. They’re saying, ‘Why would I buy right now when scrap is falling and could continue to do so?’ We’re all waiting to see what happens next."
In addition to falling scrap tags, large volumes of import material is said to already be on its way, threatening to keep a lid on long products prices.
Import license application data for January show that reinforcing bar applications jumped almost threefold to 151,153 tonnes last month, mostly led by a fourfold increase from Turkey. The same data show that wire rod imports edged up slightly to 64,016 tonnes from 61,201 tonnes imported in December, with wire rod imports from Turkey more than doubling to...
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Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.
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