As US export scrap prices have fallen by another $10/mt in the last couple weeks, Turkish mills have resumed their booking activity. In late January, Turkish mills slowed their scrap bookings from the US after purchasing heavily earlier that month. Still, scrap availability in Turkey appears to be decent, according to exporter sources in the US, so Turkish mills are in no hurry to book major tonnage. After falling about $5/mt a couple weeks ago, export scrap prices from the US East Coast to Turkey have dropped by another $10/mt or so with the latest cargos sold for approximately $387-$392/mt CFR on HMS I/II and $392-$395/mt on shredded scrap. While some indications point to a slight uptrend in export prices given steady Turkish demand, the drop in US domestic scrap prices this month could prevent any major upward move.
The US domestic scrap market mostly settled by Thursday and Friday after a standoff between mills and dealers at some Midwest mills. The Detroit-region mills settled first at down about $15-$20/mt, which one East Coast scrap dealer said at least partially stemmed from "minor panic" that prices could settle even lower as negotiations progressed. Overall, though, sources told SteelOrbis that there wasn't strong support on the dealer side for the price drop, but with many mills not buying significant tons, the drop was inevitable. Even so, some dealers did not sell as much as they normally would in February in early anticipation that there may be little downside to the US domestic scrap market in March. In February, scrap prices in the East Coast fell about $10-$15/lt compared to January while the Midwest/Chicago scrap prices reflected an approximately $10/lt decline from January.