Japanese export ferrous scrap prices have declined for a second consecutive week with a stronger yen making material from the East Asian country less attractive, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday March 11.
Fastmarkets' price assessment for
steel scrap H2 export, fob main port Japan, settled at ?22,500-23,000 ($215-220) per tonne on Wednesday, down by ?500-800 per tonne week on week from ?23,300-23,500 per tonne.
Japanese sellers have been aggressive in their scrap sales over recent weeks
while their domestic market deteriorated, but the rise in the yen has made Japanese scrap more costly on a US dollar basis, and has made it difficult to close deals.
The yen was trading at ?104.41 to $1 on March 11, according to Oanda.com, up by around 5.3% compared with two months earlier.
"The Japanese yen-US dollar rate is making scrap too expensive for mills in Asian countries, so Japanese scrap sellers are facing a drop in demand from Asian buyers," one South Korean mill source told Fastmarkets.
One major Japanese exporter source said that a Korean mill would...