India’s local and import scrap prices have continued to fall sharply during the past week but buyers have remained cautious in making bookings, anticipating that imported scrap prices are still some distance away from bottoming out, traders told SteelOrbis on Wednesday, September 25.
Ex-United Arab Emirates (UAE) shredded scrap offers have gone down $10-15/mt over the past week to $255-260/mt CFR Mumbai. But ex-UK scrap transshipped through ports in West Asia has been available at lower levels of around $245-250/mt CFR Mumbai for end-October deliveries, which is $15-20/mt below last week.
Traders said that local scrap prices have slumped by INR 1,000/mt ($14/mt) week on week to INR 22,000/mt ($309/mt) ex-stockyard at Mandi Govindgarh in northern India. Scrap prices have declined by INR 750/mt ($10/mt) to INR 21,750/mt ($306/mt) ex-stockyard at Alang in western India.
“Globally ferrous scrap prices are in a tailspin. Local Indian scrap prices are just reacting and seeking lower levels in tandem. Even with a large number of secondary steel mills shifting to imported scrap, there is a lot of local material floating in the market,” a member of the Metal Recycling Association of India (MRAI) said.
“However, local buyers are becoming cautious about concluding fresh bookings. At a time when scrap prices, local and imported, are still some way off the bottom, it makes sense for buyers to wait for prices to settle further before concluding transactions,” the MRAI member added.
At least two traders said that the downturn in the international scrap markets has been so severe that US scrap exporters have not even been submitting offers to Indian buyers over the past two weeks and are possibly preferring to “sit on stocks and wait for a revival instead of selling at current lows.”
$1 = INR 71.19