As anticipated in SteelOrbis’ report last week, a downward trend in the local Polish scrap market has materialized at the end of monthly price negotiations. Most sources have reported declines by a range of PLN 30-60/mt (€7-14/mt) for local prices, whereas scrap collection prices for export yards have declined by at least €20/mt.
More specifically, sources report that a major Polish mill has cut its scrap purchase prices by PLN 45/mt (€11/mt) for E1 and E3 scrap, and by PLN 30/mt (€7/mt) for other categories. The reasons behind these decreases are many. On the one hand, some important finished steel producers in the local market have slowed down their production rates, thus creating slower scrap demand. On the other and, import scrap prices in Turkey collapsed at the end of last week and most scrap markets followed suit.
At the same time, though, Poland is experiencing a paradoxical situation in its local scrap market. Higher quality scrap like E8 is abundant, whereas lower quality scrap like E1 is extremely scarce, to the point where the gap between prices of the latter and the former is shrinking, which is unusual.
As regards exports, a source said he does not “believe the Russian deal [cited here] will have such a great impact on the EU market, because they [Russians] cannot make deals with the EU. I expect Turkey’s import scrap prices from the EU to come down to $360/mt maximum. Mills are asking for $340/mt already, but of course there are no sales.” In the meantime, though, local collection scrap prices for export yards have fallen by €20/mt to €275/mt DAP for HMS I/II 80:20. “Deals are few,” he added. “I bet everyone will be silent at IREPAS [due to take place on April 27-29 in Athens]. They won’t talk about business,” he concluded, highlighting the pessimistic atmosphere surrounding the market.
