Predictions for US domestic scrap prices in October have mostly leveled in the past several days, as all sources polled said they believe that prices are likely to trend down by $10-$20/gt, depending on the grade and the region.
As noted in previous reports, mills’ planned maintenance outages and softer-than-desired US export prices are among the factors that are placing downward pressure on the market.
“I'm in the soft sideways camp right now,” one source said. “If [export cargo sales prices] into Turkey continue to get weaker, I think we see down $10 or $20 for sure. There still seems to be more than enough primes to go around again going into next month.”
A second source agreed.
“It sounds like [prices] will be a little bit weaker but hopefully we’re bounding along the bottom,” he said, adding he’s also heard that there’s excess prime grade scrap that is available.
A third source said that while he thinks that domestic scrap prices will “probably struggle to stay sideways” due to mills’ pending maintenance outages, he also believes that the market will need to adjust upward before winter sets in.
“Whether that happens in October, November, or December, in a downward market like we’ve been in this year, it’s going to happen,” he said.
This largely mirrors a prediction from a different source last week, who said he believes that if prices stay soft into the 4th quarter, that scrap supplies will be weak by Q1 2023.
Additional information is expected to be available by the end of next week.