With US scrap suppliers signing two deals and disclosing them to the market, Turkey’s import scrap market has remained firm in terms of prices ahead of the SteelOrbis & IREPAS conference due to be held in Monaco on October 9-12. Despite the previous expectations of a silent week leading up to the conference, buyers and sellers have reached agreement on prices.
SteelOrbis has learned that an Izmir-based producer has bought one of the cargoes, consisting of higher grades, of HMS I/II 90:10 scrap at $378/mt CFR and shredded scrap at $393/mt CFR. The estimations for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap mainly stand at $373/mt CFR Turkey.
The second deal done by an Iskenderun-based mill also consists of higher grades, with 17,000 mt of shredded scrap and 15,000 mt of bonus grade scrap at the average level of $393/mt CFR, signalling $373/mt CFR for benchmark HMS I/II 80:20 scrap. Prior to these two deals, SteelOrbis’ reference prices for ex-US HMS I/II 80:20 was standing at $369-372/mt CFR.
While there are rumours of three more cargoes having been sold to Turkey in the range of $362-367/mt CFR, including ex-Europe and ex-Baltic scrap, this information has not been confirmed by buyers or sellers by the time of publication. On the other hand, the levels are acceptable under the current market conditions and are not considered a surprise.
Meanwhile, some European sub-collectors have reiterated that they are in no rush to sell scrap to export yards or to local mills, saying that they concluded enough sales in the first nine months of the year and every new deal they close will result in a higher tax payment as the end of the year approaches. “We can increase our inventory levels. Scrap flow right now is very healthy,” a sub-collector commented, though he also added that European mills will most probably bid lower quotations this month for local scrap procurement. Activity within the US domestic scrap market has been mostly quiet so far, although most sources still believe the market is likely to settle by the end of the week. And while predictions as to where settled prices may land are not in total alignment, the one thing that people agree on is that “prices most certainly are not going up." A similar sentiment dominates the import scrap market in Turkey, where most players think there is no room for another increase in deep sea scrap prices and that the first ten days of October may indicate a sideways movement as observed in the deals reported above.