RMU: Ferrous market shapes up
After a considerable wait, the market for ferrous scrap for May shipment has started to form.
After a considerable wait, the market for ferrous scrap for May shipment has started to form.
Turkish scrap import prices were stable last week. CRU’s assessment for HMS1/2 80:20 and shredded was unchanged at $384 per metric ton (mt) CFR and $408/mt, respectively.
As we approach “buy week,” a term industry veterans use to refer to steel mill scrap buying time and an excuse to remain in the office, we have seen a variety of slants on the May market.
The steel market appears to be finding a new, higher normal with the shocks of the pandemic and the Ukraine in the rearview mirror. The good news: a more profitable and consolidated post-Covid US steel industry has been able to invest in operations. That includes efforts to decarbonize. The bad news: That “new normal” could be tested. Because it’s not just domestic sheet prices that have been volatile. Geopolitics are too.
Does the price of ferrous scrap depend on the price of finished steel product? And how much of an influence do billet and slab prices have on scrap prices?
For those of you old enough to remember The King and I, the April scrap market seems to be a puzzlement. While it is now clear that everything went sideways, one could clearly make an argument for prices to have been down.