A lack of apparent upside for secondary scrap in July's domestic trade has taken the wind out of the sails of the US export market, with Turkish and South Korean buyers securing cargoes at $3.00- to $21.50-per-tonne discounts compared with the last-reported sales to these regions.
Before official negotiations opened, US mills warned scrap sellers that any price increases in this month's domestic ferrous scrap trade would be limited to prime grades, noting that their inflows of other grades were sufficient to stave off month-on-month price hikes in July.While some sellers had been reluctant to accept the lackluster outlook, on Wednesday July 7 the market broke as the mills had predicted. Detroit mills came out with sideways offers on cut grades and shredded scrap, and offered up $20 per gross ton on prime grades.This cooling off in demand from domestic mills has paved the way for offshore steelmakers that import US scrap to successfully...