Fundamentals in the US scrap market are not yet strong enough to support a possible price rise during June trading. Consequently, market participants expect prices either to remain unchanged from May values or decline slightly.

Some mills’ outages and inconsistent domestic market and scrap export values are seen exerting strong pressure on scrap prices, making any upswing unlikely.

A scrap dealer tells Kallanish: ”Low scrap prices have a negative impact on supply. However, I think other factors will outweigh and prices will not be able to hold. In the best-case scenario, we may see stabilisation but not a rise.”

On the West Coast, US-origin containerised HMS 1&2 80:20 price declined to $348/tonne cfr Taiwan due to weak demand amid electricity limitations last week, with current week’s indicative values at around $345/t cfr. Taiwan mill Feng Shin has maintained its scrap and rebar offers this week.

On the East Coast, Turkish mills concluded four US-origin cargoes, most at $380/t cfr for HMS 1&2 80:20 with one sale at $382.5/t cfr. Amid squeezed costs and weak steel sales, Turkish mills are not willing to pay higher for scrap.