The scrap price decrease has been fixed in sales of Japanese scrap to South Korea. About 40,000 mt of Japanese H2 scrap have been sold to Hyundai Steel at JPY 26,000/mt ($242/mt) FOB, this deal price has been by JPY 1,000/mt ($9/mt) below the previous transactions. As SteelOrbis informed on Friday, Hyundai Steel has cut bids to this level late last week. Japanese suppliers had no other choice but to accept it, seeing downtrend in the international and local markets. The last deals for ex-US HMS I by bulk in South Korea have been done at $281/mt CFR and $280/mt CFR last week.
Moreover, the Japanese scrap prices have not reached bottom yet, market sources believe, taking into account that the local prices have kept going down. Today, September 10, Tokyo Steel has announced local purchasing prices’ cut for four out of five assets by JPY 500/mt ($5/mt).
Prices are now reported at the Tahara plant at JPY 24,000/mt ($224/mt) and at the Utsunomiya plant at JPY 24,500/mt ($228/mt), while prices at Okayama - at JPY 22,500/mt ($210/mt) and at Takamatsu – at JPY 21,000/mt ($196/mt), all prices delivered. Scrap prices at Kyushu site has remained unchanged. All prices are effective starting from September 11. The previous price cut has been done on September 6.
$1 = JPY 107.42