Daily Market Note — 2026-08-24

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

The read

For three weeks the Pakistani import market has been reported as a single number. Today it split into three, and the shape is more informative than the level.

Imported ferrous scrap is still assessed at $412–$415 a tonne CFR, broadly stable week on week. Underneath that: buyers are bidding below $412, and high-grade shredded is being offered at $416–$418 CFR Port Qasim. Separately, European shredded deals were heard at $407–$415 for parcels of 3,000–4,000 tonnes, some of them unconfirmed.

Three things follow. Buyers are bidding beneath the range they are quoted in — a headline “market price” and a level a mill will actually pay are not the same object, and the gap between them is where negotiations live. The deals that were reported cleared as low as $407, below the assessed band’s floor. And the published shredded assessment for the same destination refreshed to $413.88 on 21 August data, landing inside the reported range — the first time the index and the market commentary have described the same window.

The buyer-seller gap is narrow enough to transact. It is also narrow enough that freight, container payload, free days and letter-of-credit timing can consume it entirely.

Key moves

The exchange curve for steel scrap delivered to Turkey is being reported as a single figure today — a second-month close of about $385 a tonne — with no front-month price alongside it.

That figure is essentially unchanged from Friday’s September close of $385.50. But the second month is September, and the missing detail matters more than the number: against physical prints for the same market, Kallanish assessed general HMS 80:20 at $373.00 CFR Turkey and Baltic-origin material at $372.50 on 21 August data, while Fastmarkets’ US-origin index held at $375.21 for a third consecutive session.

So a September futures reference sits roughly $10 to $12 above the last physical prints — and every observed physical leg moved flat to lower, including Turkish shredded at $393.00 and the 75:25 grade down $2.00 to $359–361. “The exchange is at $385” is a statement about September. It is not evidence of what prompt cargo is worth, a distinction the reporting itself makes repeatedly.

Pakistani finished-steel prices are described as weaker for a third session while imported scrap holds. Flat input against softer output compresses the melting margin — and it sits on top of an official figure already on the record: Pakistan imported 408,041 tonnes of ferrous scrap in July, up 24.6% on the month and 42.6% on the year. A mill that bought heavily in July may still be working through it.

Freight and shipping

Crude fell more than $1 a barrel in early Monday trade, ahead of an expected announcement of additional US sanctions on Iran — the first down session after seven consecutive gains, and it moves prices back from the $95 level that has been used all month as an escalation marker.

It is not freight relief, and the reporting is right to say so. Insurance, route security, sanctions exposure, equipment availability and carrier surcharges all remain abnormal. A one-dollar intraday move ahead of an announcement that had not yet been published is not a settlement.

Shipping went the other way. Fewer than 20 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz across the weekend — 16 on Friday, 13 on Saturday, four on Sunday. Bab el-Mandeb traffic fell to 24 vessels Sunday from 32 Saturday.

A better measure arrived with it: recent Hormuz activity is put at roughly 90% below pre-conflict baselines. That is worth separating from the oil-flow figure quoted last week, which had crude moving at about 40% of normal. They are not in conflict — they count different cargo. Tankers are still moving; general commodity vessels largely are not. For anyone shipping dry cargo, the 90% figure is the relevant one, and it is the worse one.

The expected sanctions package had not been published at the time of reporting. Nothing has been withdrawn from the Pakistan-bound surcharge stack. A peak-season surcharge from European origins remains active at $300 per 20-foot and $500 per 40-foot container, and a separate Far East surcharge attaches on 31 August — described as “revised,” with no statement of what changed.

One piece of arithmetic worth keeping: at $500 a container, the difference between loading 25 tonnes and 28 tonnes is $2.14 a tonne. At $1,500, it is $6.43. Payload is a price, not a detail.

Supplier markets

US scrap sentiment continues to be described as soft, but no dock-level or yard-level prices were available — a gap now running two weeks. Canadian domestic weakness through August is again referenced, though the underlying data is nine days old. Nothing new on European inland river conditions.

Non-ferrous snapshot

Three-month copper traded around $14,159 a tonne on 24 August, roughly $76 below Friday’s level, in line with the broader risk-off move.

The last complete official set, for 21 August: copper cash $14,291, aluminium $3,227, zinc $3,980, lead $1,857, nickel $16,860.

Zinc still carries a $156 premium for immediate metal over three-month — the widest in this record — and no fresh zinc price was published today, so that condition is unobserved rather than resolved.

A point the reporting makes again and deserves repeating: cash, settlement, closing and three-month are four different series. Today’s own figures prove it — a 21 August cash price and a 24 August three-month price sit $132 apart. Settling a contract against “the exchange price” without naming which one leaves money to chance.

On policy: US export restrictions on black mass and tungsten-containing scrap begin 27 August, three days away, still with no published rule text, covered-item list or tariff codes in circulation. This is not a general US scrap export ban. Stricter EU rules for non-OECD destinations apply from 21 May 2027.

Glossary

• CFR — Cost & Freight; the quoted price includes ocean freight to the buyer’s port.
• HMS 80:20 — Heavy Melting Scrap, a mix of grades 1 and 2 in that ratio.
• Shredded — processed, size-reduced scrap; a cleaner and dearer grade than HMS.
• Bid vs offer — what a buyer will pay against what a seller is asking. An assessed “market price” usually sits between them.
• Front month vs second month — the nearest futures delivery month against the one after it. They can move independently, and only the front month is close to prompt physical.
• Cash vs three-month — metal for immediate versus three-month delivery on the exchange. When cash is dearer, the market is said to be in backwardation.
• Peak season surcharge — a temporary per-container charge added by a carrier on top of the base freight rate.
• Payload — the tonnage actually loaded into a container. Per-container charges divided by a smaller payload produce a higher cost per tonne.