South Asia: Imported Scrap Prices Under Pressure on Weak Demand

Indian market remained totally silent on the impact of local issues like limited case flow, successively falling steel and semi-finish steel prices and heavy rains in the country. On the other few steelmakers extended their production cuts and few also took maintenance shutdown. The disparity between buyers’ bids and offer levels from suppliers remain wide (around USD 15-20/MT) keeping trades very less in numbers.

SteelMint’s assessment for containerized Shredded from UK, Europe and USA stands at USD 310-313/MT, CFR Nhava Sheva, narrowing down further by USD 3-5/MT against last week’s report. Recent jump in domestic scrap prices in the domestic market of US and Europe kept leading recyclers away from offering much as they still expect USD 318-320/MT, CFR levels for fresh deals.

“After witnessing limited trades of Shredded scrap at USD 307-309/MT, CFR Qasim, now traders are offering mostly in the range of USD 312-315/MT, CFR on recent jump in domestic scrap prices in US" shared a source. Nearly 4,500 MT Shredded scrap was sold at USD 313-318/MT, CFR Port Qasim this week.

No buyers were seen interested for bulk scrap bookings amid poor buying interest. While recent arrival of a couple of bulk cargoes at Kandla port fill scrap inventories with Gujarat based steelmakers further.

HMS scrap prices came under pressure - Offers of HMS 1 scrap from Dubai have moved down in the range USD 275-285/MT, CFR Nhava Sheva while HMS 1&2 scrap offers were being reported at USD 270-275/MT depending on quality amid saturation from both sellers and buyers end.

South African origin HMS 1 was assessed at around USD 295-300/MT, CFR Nhava Sheva and USD 300/MT, CFR Qasim. Few trades of West African HMS 1&2 (80:20) reported around USD 275-280/MT, CFR Goa, depending upon quality and container size varying from 20-24 MT loading. Buyers were remained interested mostly in the range USD 265-270/MT, CFR in which UK based sheared HMS was only being offered.

Indian domestic scrap prices rangebound - Over the last 1 month, domestic scrap & semi finish prices have moved down by INR 1,500-2,000/MT (USD 22-29) while with several steelmakers undergoing production cuts domestic scrap prices likely to remain under pressure, thus, keeping imported scrap less viable. Indian Rupee has depreciated in the second half of this week to 69.6 levels today from 68.9 levels a week earlier against USD.

The current assessment of local HMS 1&2 (80:20) stands at INR 21,000-21,200/MT (USD 301-304), CFR Mumbai. On the other hand, the price gap between domestic scrap and imported scrap remain around INR 1000-1500/MT pulling imported scrap interest further down. Chennai based HMS 1&2 (80:20) assessed at INR 20,200-20,500/MT, ex-works stable on W-o-W.