The inter-merchant spot market for UK light iron scrap was stable over the week to Friday August 9, extending the steady trend into a seventh week, with prices supported by major steel scrap shredders competing for business amid relatively tight availability, sources have told Fastmarkets.
Fastmarkets' assessment of the price for steel scrap 5C, loose old light, domestic, delivered inter-merchant, UK, was ?80-100 ($97-121) per tonne on August 9, unchanged week on week.Traders and consumers said that there was stiffer competition for steel scrap among major UK processors. Typically, major processors demand a high rate of intake because their equipment requires high volumes of scrap to be cost-effective.Scrap availability has been relatively tight this summer due to the depressed car-making and construction sectors, where scrappage rates have fallen this year. But any upward momentum in prices that may have been generated has been counteracted by weak...