Ferrous Scrap Prices Move Sideways for September

Scrap dealers were a little surprised by the end of this past week as ferrous scrap prices remained stable instead of rising $10 per ton as many had anticipated. Steel Market Update wanted to understand what happened that resulted in a sideways market and here is what we learned from one of our East Coast scrap sources:

“The market moved sideways from August to September despite expectations for an increase just last week.  The weaker than expected market really resulted from some reduced buying programs (despite continued solid order books at mills).  USX-ET and ArcelorMittal Coatesville had scheduled outages, a few mills in the OH Valley had a lot of railcars sitting that needed to be unloaded, and several larger buyers were looking to raise cash and minimize inventory over the course of September.  In addition, the exporters were, we’ll call it a little less enthusiastic about the market this week than they were last week.