Daily Market Note — 30 July 2026

Market commentary on the global ferrous scrap trade. Not trading advice.

The read

Copper is the stronger market today, and it is not close. For the first time this week the two complexes have separated cleanly: non-ferrous tightness is now visible in transacted market structure, while ferrous strength remains an expectation expressed on paper.

The ferrous curve did finally move. After two sessions of being described as firm while sitting perfectly still, Turkey’s forward curve rose across every single tenor. That is a genuine change and it deserves to be recorded as one. The caveat is equally real: no fresh physical cargo has printed to confirm it, and South Asian buyers have not been observed following. A curve that steepens without a trade behind it tells you what sellers expect, not what buyers have paid.

Key moves

• Turkey scrap futures (LME): $376.00/t July, $388.00/t August, $394.00/t September, $402.00/t October, $403.50/t November, $408.00/t December. Every tenor gained on the previous close — July +$3.00, August +$10.00, September +$9.50, October +$12.00, November +$7.50, December +$8.00. August has fully retraced the sharp one-session drop it took earlier in the week, and the front-to-August premium has re-widened to about $12.
• The physical market has not confirmed it. Published physical assessments have been frozen for three consecutive sessions, with the leading US-origin index unchanged. The July futures contract now sits roughly level with physical while the deferred months run away from it. Watch for a confirmed physical booking above the front month — that is what would convert expectation into evidence.
• South Asia: no dependable public mill bid sheet for a fourth consecutive session, and no public evidence of a broad increase in mill bids. Notably, this is the first session in which the Turkish curve rose and South Asian buyers were confirmed not to follow. Earlier in the week both sides were flat, which settled nothing.
• Import duties: a 4% regulatory duty is confirmed on tinned iron or steel scrap for the 2026–27 fiscal year in Pakistan. The important point is how narrow that is — it covers one tariff line. Other ferrous scrap grades may carry different treatment entirely and must be checked individually.

Freight and shipping

Regional shipping remains exposed to conflict-related route changes, higher fuel costs, security surcharges, congestion, blank sailings and equipment disruption. No escalation was reported today, but no easing either, and for a fourth session no reliable public rate was available for any specific origin-to-destination lane in the region.

One useful piece of arithmetic for anyone building delivered costs: a $500 per-container surcharge works out to roughly $18.50–$20 per tonne at typical loadings of 25–27 tonnes. That is the scale at which a single surcharge can absorb a whole trading margin without the scrap price moving at all — and the lighter the container loads, the worse the per-tonne hit. Note also that emergency and war-risk charges can sometimes be applied after a booking is made, which lands the cost after the cargo price is already fixed.

Supplier markets

• UK and Europe: likely to stay firm, with the Turkish forward curve cited directly in support of higher asking prices. The reasonable counter-question is whether an increase reflects a scrap move or a freight move — different costs, and they should be quoted separately.
• North America: suppliers may hold firm, supported both by firm Turkish expectations and by the copper market pulling refined metal into US warehouses.
• Policy: the EU’s revised rules on waste shipments to non-OECD destinations apply from May 2027. Both the destination country and the receiving facilities must meet approval conditions, so eligibility is not something an exporter secures alone. A medium-term access question, not an imminent ban.

Non-ferrous snapshot

• Copper — the day’s real story, and the tightness is in the spread, not the headline. LME cash is trading roughly $33/t above the three-month contract — a backwardation, meaning the market is paying up for immediate metal. That is the hardest evidence of genuine prompt tightness available, and it holds even though the outright price barely moved (around $13,608/t). Behind it: LME headline stocks have fallen from over 400,000 t in May to about 262,000 t, with genuinely available (uncancelled) inventory at a six-month low just above 100,000 t — roughly 40% of the headline. Shanghai stocks sit at 69,610 t, down from 433,458 t in March, and the Yangshan import premium has jumped to $115/t from $59/t in June. Meanwhile CME warehouses now hold 58% of visible global copper stocks, drawn there by an unresolved US decision on refined copper import tariffs; US refined imports rose 13% to 763,000 t in the first five months of the year. Two large buyers competing for the same metal for entirely unrelated reasons — which is why this dislocation is increasingly described as structural rather than temporary.
• Aluminium: LME around $3,170–3,177/t, well below the $3,787.50/t early-June peak, having given back the entire conflict premium. Gulf production fell about 20% in the first half with over 2 million tonnes of annualised capacity affected — but China’s semi-finished exports rose 15% and Indonesian primary exports increased sharply, offsetting the loss. European and Japanese physical premiums remain well above pre-conflict levels, so the futures price understates real replacement cost.
• Lead: China imported 147,000 t of refined lead in the first half against 17,000 t a year earlier, reportedly because a scrap shortage constrained secondary lead production. Lead-bearing scrap may find firmer physical support than the exchange price implies. Note that LME lead stock movements remain distorted by large warrant cancellations — a falling headline is not automatically consumption.
• Zinc: net refined imports into China fell 79% year on year to 38,000 t as domestic smelting capacity expanded. Import substitution rather than demand collapse, but it may cap refined upside. LME around $3,579/t.

Glossary

• CFR — Cost & Freight; price includes shipping to the buyer’s port.
• HMS 80:20 — Heavy Melting Scrap, the most common bulk grade.
• Forward curve — prices for delivery in future months; an upward slope means the market expects higher prices later.
• Backwardation — when metal for immediate delivery costs more than metal for later delivery; a classic sign of physical shortage right now.
• Contango — the opposite of backwardation; later delivery costs more, the normal state of a well-supplied market.
• Cancelled warrant — exchange metal earmarked for withdrawal; rising cancellations shrink headline stocks without any metal being consumed.
• Yangshan premium — the premium Chinese buyers pay over the exchange price for imported spot metal; a gauge of real import appetite.
• Regulatory duty — an additional import duty applied to specific tariff lines, separate from standard customs duty.
• Rollover — cargo bumped to a later vessel, often burning free time before it discharges.