Over the past week China's scrap market has continued to be sluggish, while scrap traders have stepped up their efforts to sell off materials. With steel prices trending down further, it is thought that steel mills will continue to limit their inventories of raw materials and thus slow down their purchases of scrap. Meanwhile, with more mills implementing production cutbacks, scrap consumption in China may decline sharply in the coming period.
Product name |
Specification |
Place of origin |
Price (RMB/mt) |
Weekly change (RMB/mt) |
Price ($/mt) |
Weekly change ($/mt) |
HMS scrap |
> 6 mm |
Jiangsu |
2,880 |
- |
425 |
- |
Shandong |
2,850 |
- |
420 |
- |
Over the past week China's scrap market has followed a stable trend in general. Current mainstream quotations of heavy scrap in Jiangsu Province remain at the level of RMB 2,800-2,850/mt ($413-420/mt), while the purchase prices in this province for shredded scrap are at RMB 2,900-2,950/mt ($428-435/mt), unchanged week on week. In Hebei Province, mainstream purchase prices of steel mills for heavy scrap are at RMB 2,850-2,900/mt ($420-428/mt), remaining neutral week on week. Meanwhile, market prices of heavy scrap in the northeastern region are standing at RMB 2,800-2,950/mt ($413-434/mt), with the lower end down by RMB 50/mt ($7/mt) week on week, with scrap prices in Hubei Province standing at RMB 2,850-2,900/mt ($421-428/mt), unchanged week on week.
Due to the overall weakness in the steel market, most market players expect that the steel prices will continue to trend down in the coming period and thus scrap traders have speeded up their efforts to sell off materials. Meanwhile, given the price declines in the steel market, some medium- and small-sized mills have started production cutbacks or stoppages while larger mills are conducting overhauls, leading to a decrease in scrap consumption to a certain extent. It is thought that Chinese scrap prices could continue their sideways trend or could trend down in the coming period.
In the past week, quotations of overseas scrap have continued to indicate a recovery. At present, quotations of ex-US scrap to China are reported to have increased to $375-380/mt CFR, which Chinese buyers find hard to accept. At the same time, ex-Japan H2 scrap offers to China have remained at $350/mt CFR.