Daily Market Note — 2026-08-21
Market commentary on the global ferrous scrap trade. Not trading advice.
The read
A full forward curve for Turkish scrap became visible again this week for the first time in several sessions, and it tells a different story from the one usually told about it.
The exchange strip for steel scrap delivered to Turkey now runs $376.50 for August, $382 for September, $385 for October, $388 for November and $391.50 for December. Each month costs more than the one before it, which is the shape people mean when they say the market looks firm.
But shape is not level. Measured against the same curve a week ago — $379.50 at the front, rising to $396 by December — every single month is $3 to $5 lower. The upward slope survived; the whole structure sank beneath it. And the slope itself flattened slightly, from $16.50 between the front month and December to $15.00.
A curve that falls while flattening is a market marking down what it expects, not marking up. It is worth separating the two the next time “the forward curve is firm” is offered as evidence of anything.
The second point is that the argument has become small. The August contract at $376.50 now sits $1.29 above the main physical index at $375.21. A fortnight ago the two were several dollars apart and which one you quoted mattered. Today it barely does.
Key moves
Physical Turkish scrap has stopped moving altogether. One widely-followed daily assessment has printed $373.25 for the general 80:20 grade nine sessions running. Another publisher’s range has held at $368–376 for a third consecutive observed session. The main US-origin index sat flat at $375.21 on a fresh date. Three independent assessors, all frozen.
That stillness is itself informative. The last confirmed cargoes — a US 85:15 at $378.50, a US 80:20 at $375.00 and a Baltic 80:20 at $369.50, all on 19 August — bracket the assessments rather than challenge them. European material still clears well below American, and that $9 spread across one day is where the real variation lives.
The US leg looks softer than the weekly headlines suggest. Domestic scrap indicators for HMS and shredded were refreshed with weak sentiment, while weekly trade reporting continues to describe East Coast export prices as unchanged. The daily export index for HMS 80:20 out of New York came in $2 lower at $330.50; the West Coast equivalent held at $323.00. Three sources, one direction of travel.
Pakistan’s published import index has not refreshed since Tuesday’s $417.33. The paywalled European-origin assessment for Port Qasim now carries a 20 August timestamp, so the assessor is working even where the number is not public.
Freight and shipping
Hormuz traffic fell to seven commodity vessels on Thursday, with no very large crude carrier and no LNG tanker among them. Bab el-Mandeb dropped to 23 vessels from 34 on each of the two preceding days.
A note on precision: this daily count has now been revised five times in ten sessions, and today a single report gave Wednesday as both fourteen and nine vessels in different sections. Read the direction, not the figure. The durable evidence is what is missing rather than what is counted — no large tankers in the visible transits, and major Chinese state shippers absent from both chokepoints for a fifth week.
Oil rose for a sixth consecutive session — Brent near $93.61, WTI near $86.47 — with Brent heading for a weekly gain of about 5.8%.
The interesting detail is that Brent rose while WTI fell, widening the gap between them to $7.14 from $6.07. That spread separates seaborne crude from landlocked American barrels, and it widening means the risk premium is being attached specifically to oil that has to travel by sea. Marine fuel is priced off exactly that leg.
A second peak-season surcharge into Pakistan was announced, and it is a large one: from 31 August, $1,000 per twenty-foot container and $1,500 per forty- or forty-five-foot container from Far East Asian origins. For comparison, the European equivalent introduced on 15 August is $300 and $500. On a 25-tonne box, $1,500 works out at $60 a tonne. Nothing has been withdrawn from the Pakistan-bound surcharge stack in twenty-five checked sessions; this is the second addition in seven.
Supplier markets
Rhine conditions were described again as improved only slightly from record lows, with road and rail substitution continuing — but the underlying report is the same one from 19 August, so nothing has actually been observed on this front for several days. No gauge reading, barge-loading percentage or inland transport cost has been published in five sessions.
The practical question to an inland German supplier is unchanged and still unanswered: is the material already at the port, and what does the inland leg cost per tonne? Port-adjacent Low Countries supply remains better placed on the same reasoning that has held for nine sessions.
Non-ferrous snapshot
Official settlements for 20 August: copper cash $14,170 against $13,970.50 three-month; zinc $3,865.50 and $3,743; aluminium $3,182 and $3,183.
Zinc was the mover — cash up $115.50 in a single session, one of the largest advances in the series, with the premium for immediate metal widening to $122.50, the widest on record here. On a brass parcel assaying roughly 63% copper and 35% zinc, that is around $40 a tonne of value moving overnight.
Copper steadied but its curve did not. The premium for prompt metal narrowed sharply from $290 to $199.50 — a $90.50 move in one session, on a metal whose outright price barely changed. A spread that mobile is a stronger argument for pricing quickly than any move in the headline.
A worked example of why the reference matters: a widely-quoted closing price for three-month copper on 20 August was around $14,036.50, while the official three-month settlement for the same day was $13,970.50. Same metal, same delivery date, same day, $66 apart — and neither figure is wrong. They are different fixes taken at different moments. “Three-month copper” is not, by itself, a complete contract term.
Aluminium’s curve went flat. The discount for immediate metal, which was $20.50 on 19 August, is now $1.00. Exchange stocks remain historically low, but a market where deferring delivery costs a dollar is not one where prompt metal is being fought over.
On policy: US export restrictions on black mass and tungsten-containing scrap begin 27 August, running one year with case-by-case waivers. Stricter EU rules for non-OECD destinations not on the authorised list apply from 21 May 2027.
Glossary
- CFR — Cost & Freight; the quoted price includes ocean freight to the buyer’s port.
- HMS 80:20 / 85:15 — Heavy Melting Scrap mixes of grades 1 and 2; the higher the first number, the better the grade.
- Forward curve — the set of prices for delivery in successive future months. Rising with time is contango; falling is backwardation.
- Cash vs three-month — metal for immediate versus three-month delivery.
- Official vs closing price — two different exchange fixes taken at different points in the trading day. They can differ materially on the same date.
- Peak season surcharge — a temporary per-container charge added by a carrier on top of the base freight rate.