Small Decline Forecast for April Ferrous Scrap

Ferrous scrap settled up $20 per ton in March, but demand is softening and supplies are building, leading to predictions of April scrap prices that move sideways or decrease by $5 to $10 per ton.

Outages at five mills in late March and early April will dampen scrap demand, said CRU North America Analyst Ryan McKinley. Buy programs for mills not taking outages appear similar to last month, with capacity utilization rates hanging around 83 percent. At the same time, the weather has been warm enough to keep scrap flowing, although a bit slower than average. And export prices are unchanged. “Overall, scrap appears to be shaping up at sideways to down $5-10,” McKinley said.