UK ferrous scrap prices for deliveries in December have uniformly dropped by ?20 per tonne due to weaker export prices and a slowdown in domestic consumer demand, trade sources told Fastmarkets MB on Thursday December 13.
The move follows a rollover on consumer delivery settlements in the past two months. UK suppliers had signaled a likely drop in December shipment prices due to a fall in European steel scrap export prices to key export destinations such as Turkey and the Indian subcontinent."UK monthly settlements for December have been agreed at between ?20 and ?25 per tonne off," one industry source told Fastmarkets MB. "Turkish consumers have bought much less UK scrap than normal since early November and so some UK processors had no choice but to accept lower prices."However, only a few suppliers agreed to a ?25 per tonne drop in prices, probably the smaller suppliers where the steelworks felt they could apply more pressure," he added.Sources said the major shredders that typically produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of scrap each year have also...