While there is still a general feeling of optimism regarding the US domestic December scrap price trend, predictions over how much prices will increase have been tepid. Scrap dealer sources explained that they are wary of making any predictions ahead of any scrap transactions taking place. But for the time being, many still believe that scrap prices have room to move up in December as scrap flows are lacking and some mills have little scrap inventory at the moment, particularly for shredded and HMS I grades-there is mild prime scrap overhang in the domestic market.
But even with lean scrap inventories, mill demand for scrap isn't particularly robust at the moment, so any price increase in December will likely be well below the $40-$60/lt price surge in early November. Additionally, while scrap export demand was strong a couple weeks ago as Turkey and India were buying up cargos from the US, Turkey made no scrap bookings from the US in the first half of the week and is said to be slowing down its scrap purchases. For now, export scrap demand is decent enough to help influence an increase in US domestic prices in December, but that could change if export prices begin to slide.