Turkish traders struggle with delivery issues from Iran

An increasing number of players in Turkey have been facing delivery issues from Iran in the recent days. According to widespread reports, PP and PE shipments from Iran have come to a standstill after Turkey’s requirement for consulate approval for the invoices of the imports of Iranian material took immediate effect as of July 24, 2017. Iran has already been requiring consulate approval in the invoices of their exports to Turkey, upon which Turkey has started to take the same decision recently.

Traders in Turkey confirmed that most sellers suspended their offers for Iranian polyolefins to Turkey as of early this week amidst quite slow bureaucratic process. “We managed to get approval from the Turkish consulate in Iran but we don’t think it will be easy for every company to do that. The situation will cause severe tightness in the coming weeks as there are not much prompt Iranian materials in Turkey these days,” one of them stated.

PP buyers reported receiving higher offers for Iranian origins this week, as a lack of fresh cargos contributed to the firmer August expectations that emerged for PP last week. A bcf converter highlighted, “Iranian cargos have been delivered by ships in the recent weeks and now this approval process is likely to extend the delivery periods further. This will naturally provide an upper end to sellers who were already willing to seek higher levels.”

A PE packager reminded that Turkey previously warned Iran to lift its implementation that obligates an approval on exports from Turkey, while another one said: “We heard that traders are having tough times as they are not able to bring their cargos for which they already paid. Until when this problem will remain in place is still a question mark, with a few players expecting it to be solved in a week.”

Iranian producers are demanding for a solution from their own official executives, saying the recent decision hindered their trading while Turkish executives are also trying to find a solution nowadays, according to players. “There should have been a warning or an exact date given before the decision was brought into force in order to let players get ready. All deliveries have automatically been postponed by a week already while materials waiting in trucks mean an additional cost of $100/ton per day for suppliers,” a player opined.

According to a statement from PAGEV (Turkish Plastic Industry Foundation), the recent regulation have not only resulted in additional costs and a time sink that stems from the bureaucracy but also caused a visible uncertainty in the state of companies whose import materials have already been shipped. “We are currently engaged in talks with the related ministries, chambers of industry and trade as well as TOBB (The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey) in order to protect our manufacturers from the possibly negative impacts of this issue and reduce the uncertainties regarding the implementation,” PAGEV mentioned.