After Nucor announced this week an unplanned outage at the company’s Louisiana DRI plant that will last 4-5 weeks due to equipment malfunction, some mills are reportedly scurrying to locate prime quality substitutes including busheling scrap for delivery in February and March.
US domestic scrap prices moved down as expected due to the drastic drop in US export scrap prices that were present at the beginning of the February buy-cycle. While shredded and heavy melt encountered a price decline of $25-35/mt inland, in the case of busheling, prices remained strong with only a $10-15/mt price reduction from January deals, although, it has come to light that late in the bu-cycle some mills confirmed buying busheling at the same price in February as in January given the tight industrial supply of the product.
According to sources, Midwest and South flat rolled mills are trying to buy additional raw material supply for February and early March delivery. Busheling was heard purchased at $315-330/mt ($310-325/gt) delivered to customers in the relevant regions during the February buy-cycle that recently settled. Prices are expected to increase the average pricing of busheling by $20-30/mt ($20-30/gt) once these deals are completed due to tight supply conditions. Already a source close to the these markets has informed SteelOrbis that busheling scrap prices are reaching $345-351/mt ($340-345/gt) for guaranteed deliveries and some quiet deals may even move prices higher as the cost of not having adequate feedstock would prove much more costly for mills.