BANGLADESH STEEL SCRAP: Higher bulk demand inflates deep-sea prices

Stronger global demand for scrap shipments in bulk has led to a sharp rise in deep-sea import scrap prices to Bangladesh over the past week, market participants told Fastmarkets on Thursday December 17.

An acute shortage of containers has pushed more buyers toward the bulk route in recent weeks, with at least two Bangladeshi mills in the market actively looking for a deep-sea cargo, which led to a spike in bulk scrap import prices, sources said on Thursday.
"Easier handling on the bulk side may have moved demand from the container market toward bulk. Medium and smaller-sized yards that sell in containers are happy to keep moving material but the bigger processors want more for their bulk shipments" a South Asian scrap trader said.
Offers are as high as $500 per tonne cfr Bangladesh for deep-sea HMS 1&2 (80:20) from the United States, but buyers have only bid up to $440 per tonne cfr, the scrap trader said.

All mills still expect prices to drop even though they have been waiting for this to happen for two months now and...

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