![Although one scrap processor characterizes the export market as “a godsend” that has helped prices from dropping to even lower values, buyers of West Coast exported scrap are lowering their bids in late August.](file:///C:/Users/SUBHAU~1.BHA/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.png)
It may not qualify as a
resurgence, but benchmark ferrous scrap grades held their value and even rose
by from $2 to $5 per ton nationally in late July and the first 19 days of
August, according to mill transaction data collected by the Raw Material Data
Aggregation Service (RMDAS) of Pittsburgh-based MSA Inc.
In the trading period
from July 20 to August 19 of this year, domestic mills paid on average $5 more
per ton for No. 1 heavy melting steel (HMS) than they did in the prior 30-day
period, representing the largest price increase for shippers.
During the same time
frame, shredded scrap gained $2 per ton in value, according to RMDAS, and the mills paid on
average $3 more per ton for the prompt industrial composite grade scrap.
The modest price
increases nationally and in three different RMDAS geographic regions were not
enough to boost any benchmark grade above the $400 per ton threshold.
Nationally, mills in the 30-day summer stretch paid $396 per ton for prompt
scrap, $381 per ton for shred and $326 per ton for No. HMS.
Among the three grades in
the three different RMDAS regions (South, North Midwest and North/Central
East), seven gained modest value of from $1 to $8 per ton, while the value of
shred in the North Midwest remained unchanged and No. 1 HMS in the South lost
$1 per ton in value.
The biggest price rise was
for prompt scrap in the South, with the grade in that region rising from $384
per ton in late June and early July to $392 per ton in late July and early
August.
In mid-August, one scrap
processor described the supply and demand situation in the ferrous scarp
landscape as “in a reasonable balance,” but another told Recycling Today, “Supply is not
plentiful; it has steadily reduced as seen in total quantities sold and
shipped. If you look at most scrap yards, there is not a surplus of scrap
inventories.”
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Even the processor with
supply concerns does not necessarily see the market as poised for a sizable
spike upward in pricing, however. “The difference is that demand is also down,”
he comments. “In that context, supply is in balance.”
One of the two processors
contacted by Recycling Today says
summer steel mill maintenance programs could put a dent in demand while the
other characterizes the export market as “a godsend” that has helped prices
from dropping to even lower values.
However, an August 20 report
from Davis Index indicates the overseas
market’s ability to spur higher prices is questionable in late August. The news
and pricing service says No. 1 HMS and plate and structural (P&S) grades
shipped from San Francisco are fetching from $8 per $10 per ton less than they
were earlier in the month, with one shipment of No. 1 HMS falling to $299 per
gross ton