Daily Market Note — 2026-08-29

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

The read

For a fourth consecutive session, imported scrap into Pakistan declined to price in a cost increase everyone can see coming — and this time the deadline is two days away.

Container freight to Pakistan is publicly expected to rise $400–$500 a box in September. On a twenty-foot container carrying 25–28 tonnes that is $14 to $20 a tonne. A major carrier’s revised Far East peak-season surcharge takes effect on 31 August. Sellers have been citing both for four days.

Across those four days the buying level has not moved a dollar, and neither has the offer.

Three sessions of that was a property of the market. A fourth, with the deadline visible, says something narrower and more useful: a buyer intending to pull tonnage forward ahead of a dated cost step has had four days to do it and has not. Whatever is restraining this market, it is not a lack of warning.

There is a second thing worth saying, because it is easy to miss when a number repeats. The evidence behind that fourth identical price block has not advanced. The most recent detailed Pakistan market report is dated 25 August. Nothing has been published since. A level restated four times from one source is one observation quoted four times — not four observations. Anyone quoting “the market” this week should be asked what date the assessment carries.

Key moves

• Pakistan imported scrap — the broad public range holds around $412–$415/MT CFR. The strongest recent physical evidence remains a 2,000–3,000 tonne UK-origin shredded cargo at $414–$415/MT CFR Port Qasim, now restated for a fourth session. Buyer focus sits around $410–$412; European and UK offers around $415–$420. The gap has not closed and has not widened.
• Pakistan domestic chain — mill operating rates reported around 35%, finished-steel sales at 40–45% of normal. Local scrap around PKR 145,000–147,000/MT, billet PKR 216,000–218,000/MT ex-works, rebar PKR 234,000–236,000/MT ex-works. All unchanged for a fourth session. Monsoon-season construction weakness continues.
• A detail that gets the sign backwards if you rush it — at current exchange rates the domestic scrap feed sits above imported material on a per-tonne basis. Imports are the cheaper input. The constraint on this market is inventory cover and finished-steel demand, not the relative price of imported scrap.
• Turkey — no exchange or physical figures published today; Saturday, with the last full session on Friday 28 August. The forward curve is described only as firmer beyond the prompt month. Worth restating what that means: a forward-led rise is a statement about later shipment months, not about prompt cargo. The exchange contract is a forward reference, not an executable physical price.

Freight and shipping

Twenty-foot rates into Pakistan are reported around $1,450–$1,500 currently, with September expectations $400–$500 higher.

The genuinely new item today is a carve-out rather than a rate. The carrier’s revised Far East Asia-to-Pakistan peak-season surcharge — $1,000 per 20ft and $1,500 per 40ft/45ft from 31 August — is stated not to apply to SPOT bookings. On a twenty-foot box that surcharge is worth roughly $36–$40 a tonne: about twice the September freight step itself. Whether the exclusion is real or simply absorbed into a higher spot base rate is a question worth putting to any carrier in writing before assuming either.

The Europe-to-Pakistan surcharge is unchanged at $300 per 20ft and $500 per 40ft, 40HC and 45HC, with no equivalent exclusion published. The two lanes now differ in kind, not just in size.

Port Qasim’s daily programme, updated 28 August, showed active container sailings alongside coal, LPG and fuel movements — consistent with recent data showing very short median anchorage waits. That says the vessel queue is clear. It says nothing about container equipment, slot availability or free days, which are separate constraints and remain the tighter ones.

Hormuz remains restricted. Reuters reported seven visible commodity vessels transiting on Thursday against a ten-day average of about fifteen. A note of caution on that series: the same Wednesday was reported as ten vessels yesterday and seventeen today. Daily hull counts in this corridor have been revised repeatedly and always upward — throughput and direction are the reliable measures; single-day counts are not. Oil eased across the week, with Brent settling in the high $80s.

Supplier markets

European and UK sellers remain the visible offer side into Pakistan. Current UK and US East Coast dock buying levels were not available from public sources today, which is itself worth noting — the offer side of this market is better published than the cost side.

Container availability remains the supplier-side constraint for September loading, and it is the reason the freight question and the material question cannot be answered separately this month. Where suppliers can quote FOB or ex-works alternatives, the freight risk can at least be priced independently of the material.

Non-ferrous snapshot

Saturday, so the last executable exchange references are Friday’s close.

• Copper near record territory, with US tariff expectations continuing to pull refined metal toward US warehouses and tighten availability elsewhere.
• Zinc remains historically elevated with tight prompt availability, despite rising Chinese exports. The forward structure has stayed unusually tight for several weeks.
• Aluminium supply remains pressured, with elevated US premiums following Middle East production disruption. That is a regional premium story and does not read across automatically to European or Asian material.

One general point for anyone pricing metal-content material: published figures move quickly and citations age faster than they look. A copper or zinc reference four days old can sit well over $100 a tonne away from the current level, and the direction of that error is not predictable in advance. Fix against a same-day official price and name the exchange, the tenor and the price type in the contract.

Policy

The US allocation order covering black mass and tungsten waste and scrap remains in force through 27 August 2027, requiring covered material to be sold domestically. A useful clarification today: hitting a covered tariff line is necessary but not sufficient — the material must also meet the regulator’s own definition, and equally, missing the tariff line does not automatically clear a stream.

Separately, Pakistan-bound general cargo now requires the consignee’s NTN or FTN identifier on documentation. A missing identifier can cause manifest rejection and discharge delay. It costs nothing to check before loading and is expensive to discover afterwards.

Glossary

• CFR — cost and freight; seller pays ocean freight to the destination port, buyer carries the insurance and the risk in transit.
• Port Qasim — Pakistan’s main deep-water import terminal, near Karachi.
• Shredded — processed scrap of consistent size and density, the main containerised grade into Pakistan.
• HMS 1&2 — heavy melting scrap, the standard bulk ferrous grade.
• PSS — peak season surcharge, a temporary carrier charge added to base ocean freight.
• SPOT booking — a one-off booking at the prevailing market rate, as opposed to a contracted rate.
• Billet — semi-finished steel, the intermediate product between melted scrap and finished rebar.
• Backwardation — when the prompt price of a metal sits above the forward price, usually a sign of near-term tightness.