Prices down by a quarter as China’s steel consumption decline impacts.
Ferrous scrap recyclers hoping for a price rebound in the fourth quarter of 2015 are instead seeing another steep price drop in the early October buying period.
An Oct. 7, 2015, report in American Metal Market (AMM) says steel mill buyers in the Chicago and Detroit regions are paying in the $145 to $150 per ton range for the No. 1. heavy melting steel (HMS) grade. Other mills in the region are not buying scrap at all, according to the report.
If October 2015 prices stay in that range, it will represent a more than 25 percent drop from the $217 average price for No. 1 HMS in September. An average figure in the $150 range will put ferrous scrap in a price range it has not visited since the late 2008 and early 2009 financial crisis.
Steelmakers and ferrous scrap recyclers around the world continue to cope with the ramifications of China’s steep drop in steel consumption in 2014 and 2015 combined with steel output in that nation that is only now being curtailed (and at a modest pace).
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