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Pakistan: Imported Scrap Prices Inch Down Amid Slow Buying Interest

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Melting Scrap

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19 Nov 2019, 18:57 IST

Pakistan: Imported Scrap Prices Inch Down Amid Slow Buying Interest

After several weeks of uptrend since Oct'19 followed by relative stability, the imported scrap offers to Pakistan have inched down this week, as low interest from buyers have kept trades below average this week as well, SteelMint learned from market participants. As a slow domestic market and sharp price cuts for finished steel have affected the margins of steel mills, limited active procurement has been witnessed for the last couple of weeks.

SteelMint's assessment for containerized Shredded 211 scrap from UK/Europe stands at around USD 285/MT, CFR Qasim, inching down by USD 3-4/MT against last week's report. Few yards in UK and Europe are offering at an even lower USD 281-283/MT price levels on very poor demand from all South Asian markets. Few bookings at USD 283-285/MT were reported this week albeit in smaller quantities of 500-800 MT per shipment each.

HMS scrap have witnessed stability in the offers even though bookings remain quite slow. UAE origin HMS 1 (super) is being offered at around USD 280-282/MT CFR, marginally lower than last week. HMS 1 from South Africa also stands at USD 280/MT CFR with limited deals reported. Few offers for European Origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) stood stable at around USD 270/MT CFR.

However few scrap traders are hopeful that buyers will be back in the market by this weekend for winter restocking.

Local steel prices stable - Post observing a significant fall in steel prices last week, the offers by most mills have stood mostly stable since then, while the demand from the end-users remains critically low. Bala Billet has observed a further fall by PKR 1000/MT this week, currently standing at PKR 83,000/MT ex-works, while local scrap (eq to shredded) remains at PKR 61,000-62,000/MT ex works.