Domestic, global factors restrain ferrous pricing

Prices for benchmark grades of recycled steel in the United States stayed level or rose by less than $5 per ton in August, according to mill buying transaction figures gathered by Pittsburgh-based MSA Inc.’s Raw Material Data Aggregation Service (RMDAS).

In its domestic mill buying summary for July 21 to Aug. 20, RMDAS reports the value of prompt grades was unchanged compared with the previous 30-day period.

Mills paid an additional $1 per ton for No. 2 shredded scrap in the U.S. in August, meanwhile, and No. 1 heavy melting steel (HMS) gained $4 per ton based on domestic mill buying patterns.

U.S. steel mills have been steady buyers of scrap this year, but the most recent weekly production figure from the Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) portrays an industry with output that might be stabilizing.

AISI says in the week ending Aug. 16, domestic steel production totaled 1.774 million tons, with mills running at a capability utilization (capacity) rate of 78.3 percent.

Offering good news to recyclers, steel production in the U.S. has increased 1.3 percent year to date, and the mid-August weekly figure is 2.8 percent higher compared with output in the week ending Aug. 16, 2024.

However, the most recent week’s output is down 1.4 percent compared with the previous week, when the weekly figure reached 1.8 million tons and the mill capacity rate had risen to 79.5 percent.

Global steel output also is showing signs of weakening.

According to the Brussels-based World Steel Association (Worldsteel), July crude steel production in the 70 countries reporting to it was 150.1 million tons (mmt), a 1.3 percent decrease compared with July 2024 and 0.86 percent lower compared with the 151.4 mmt of steel produced worldwide the previous month.

The steelmaking news from two of America’s largest recycled steel export markets would seem to offer some encouragement to scrap processors.

According to Worldsteel, India produced 9.8 percent more steel in the first seven months of this year compared with the same period in 2024, while Turkey’s output has remained nearly level, showing just a 0.9 percent decrease.

However, rolling mills that also operate melt shops in both nations might be tapping into semifinished steel billet supplied by nations including China and Russia rather than loading up on recycled steel from the U.S.

Navigate Commodities, a shipping information service that began tracking some billet and slab shipments earlier this year, said such shipments into Turkey reached a temporary peak in June before declining in July.

However, in a mid-August LinkedIn post, Navigate Managing Director Atilla Widnell says indications and conditions are pointing to a rebound in billet and slab headed toward Turkey in late summer.

Widnell says when rebar prices decline in China, as they did in early August, Chinese steel traders almost instantly react in several ways, including by offering billets and slabs made in China, Indonesia and Malaysia to buyers in other parts of the world.

“Steel mills with rerolling lines will soon notice these attractively priced semis waiting in the corner of the dance floor," Widnell adds of Turkey.

For scrap processors in the United States, a billet and slab buying splurge in Turkey and in India could mean fewer dance partners on the trading floor in late August and early September.