Recycling Today archives
Steel
mill scrap purchasing transactions for late October and the first three weeks
of November show ferrous scrap prices in the United States have enjoyed their
first bump upward in several months.
The figures collected by the Raw Material
Data Aggregation Service (RMDAS) of Pittsburgh-based MSA Inc. show the RMDAS
prompt industrial composite grade gained $30 per ton as a national average
between Oct. 21 and Nov. 20 of this year.
Gaining less value, but
rising nonetheless, were the RMDAS No. 2 Shredded Scrap grade (up by $22 per
ton nationally) and the No. 1 heavy melting steel (HMS) grade, up by $17 per
ton during the same time frame.
Regionally, price
increases were the weakest in the RMDAS South region, with grades rising from
$16 to $20 per ton there.
The strongest
across-the-board price increases were in the North Central/East region, which
could indicate that increased buying from brokers representing Turkish and
Indian mills may have caused domestic bids to rise higher to compete.
The highest single
domestic ferrous price as of late November is the $456 per ton prompt grades
are fetching in the RMDAS North Midwest region (consisting of Illinois, the
northwest corner of Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri,
Wisconsin and the Dakotas).
The lowest figure,
meanwhile, is $357 per ton for No. 1 HMS in that same region. Although some
grades in some regions rose in value in August, it was the first
across-the-board increase in U.S. ferrous prices since this March.
Domestic steelmaking
output has weathered any turbulence it may have encountered tied to the United
Auto Workers strike, where ratification by union members at all three affected
automakers was achieved this week.
According to the
Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), in the week ending
Nov. 18, 2023, domestic steel output of 1.696 million tons is up by 0.8 percent
from the previous week and represents an encouraging 6.4 percent increase in
output from the comparable week last year.
Changing from excavators to Sennebogen waste
handlers pays off for champion's MRF operations. In 2015, Paul Kuhar was deep
into opening his new MRF designed specifically for processing C&D
materials. It’s no coincidence this was the same year he started to switch his
loading equipment from traditional excavators to Sennebogen 821 M purpose-built
material handlers.
Pricing service Davis
Index is reporting Turkish pricing that is rising slowly, including an average
$2.25 per metric ton increase paid for imported scrap in the week of Nov.
13-17. “Mills are actively seeking for ferrous cargo in December-January,”
writes Davis Index.
India has offered a red
hot bright spot for U.S. exporters throughout the year, boosting its purchases
by a whopping 120 percent, or from 244,000 in the first half of last year to
537,000 metric tons in this year’s first half, according to U.S. Census Bureau
data.
In that market heading
into November, buyers may be withdrawing temporarily as they sense a rise in
prices. As India exits its Diwali holiday period and heads toward U.S. holiday
seasons, Davis Index characterizes the Indian ferrous scrap import market as of
Nov. 20 as “flat in a silent market.”
At the container port of
Nhava Sheva, India, the metals information service writes, “trades at higher
prices remained very thin despite high hopes of demand revival.”