Daily Market Note — 2026-09-01

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

The read

Freight is the loudest subject in this market right now, and a lot of the noise is on lanes most scrap does not travel.

The carrier surcharge announcements getting the most attention this week are on the Far East Asia to Pakistan trade. They are large and they are real: a peak season surcharge of $1,000 per 20ft and $1,500 per 40ft/45ft is already in force for most covered origins, with Vietnam joining today and South Korea from 4 September. A further revision published on 31 August takes the 40ft and 45ft charge to $2,000 from 15 September (South Korea from 18 September). No revised 20ft figure has been published, and none should be inferred.

But the great majority of containerised ferrous scrap moving into Pakistan comes from the Atlantic basin — the UK, north-west Europe, the Baltics, Canada and the United States. On those lanes, contracted September base rates that take effect today did not move. The widely-discussed $400–500 per box September step that suppliers have been citing since late August is not in the contracted rate on the Pakistan trade.

The practical point for anyone buying or selling this week: a surcharge on one origin is not a market-wide freight increase. When a supplier attributes a price increase to “September freight,” the right question is which lane, which carrier, and which line of the quote. If it is a surcharge, it should appear as a surcharge line. If it is the base rate, it should appear on a rate sheet.

Key moves

• Pakistan imported scrap — no new published assessment. The most recent index print remains $419.96/MT CFR Port Qasim from 28 August, with deals concluded that week at $417–422, offers $420–425 and good-yard material $425 and above. Monday 31 August was a UK public holiday, so there was no Monday print. The next assessment is due imminently.
• A caution that still applies to that level — the publisher’s own stated cause was supply, not demand: collection and container shortages lifting offers. A logistics-driven level can unwind faster than a demand-led one.
• And the freshest commentary supports that caution. A market report dated 31 August describes Indian imported scrap prices firming on stronger buying interest while the Pakistan market remains subdued, with Pakistani buying need-based against weak finished-steel demand and higher freight. Those two readings are compatible rather than contradictory: offers rose because material was scarce, not because buyers got hungrier.
• A note on comparing the two destinations — they are being reported as moving in different directions by the same publisher in the same report. That is worth knowing before treating strength in one South Asian market as evidence about the other.
• Turkey — a fresh HMS 80:20 CFR Iskenderun assessment is dated 31 August, though the value is not publicly exposed. The published physical index for US-origin 80:20 into Turkey remains $376.23, unchanged for a fourth session with no new deep-sea transactions reported.

Freight and shipping

The surcharge picture, stated plainly because the scope matters more than the size:

• Far East Asia → Pakistan: $1,000 per 20ft, $1,500 per 40ft/45ft, in force. Rising to $2,000 per 40ft/45ft from 15 September; 20ft unrevised.
• Europe → Pakistan: $300 per 20ft, $500 per 40ft, 40HC and 45HC — unchanged.

The arithmetic that matters is per tonne, not per box. At 25–28 tonnes of dense scrap in a container, $2,000 per box is $71 to $80 per tonne; $1,000 per box is $36 to $40. From 15 September, on the Far East lane, a 40ft box would carry roughly twice the surcharge cost per tonne of a 20ft box — and because dense scrap is weight-limited rather than volume-limited, the larger box offers little offsetting payload advantage. Anyone shipping non-ferrous out of that region after mid-September should price both box sizes explicitly, and confirm the carrier’s maximum payload for each before assuming an answer.

One published detail worth reading carefully: the 15 September revision is stated as not applicable to spot bookings. That exclusion is attached to the September revision. It is not stated for the surcharge currently in force, and the two should not be treated as one instrument.

Regional risk did not improve. Reuters reports commodity vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz running well below pre-conflict levels, mediation efforts involving Qatar and Oman producing no meaningful progress, and another tanker struck by projectiles while exiting the Strait, with no reported injuries or environmental damage. Brent rose around 0.7% to approximately $91.15/bbl and WTI around 0.8% to $86.46.

A measurement caution this note has made before and will keep making: daily vessel counts through this corridor are unreliable. They have been revised repeatedly, always upward — and this week the baseline being compared against moved too. A ratio built on a shifting denominator is not a measurement. Use throughput and direction.

Destination operations remain normal. Port Qasim Authority’s own daily shipping programme for 1 September shows container vessels both sailing from and berthing at the container terminal, a steel-coil vessel discharging 29,772 MT, and no sailing, berthing or shifting cancellations. Discharge is not the constraint in this trade. Carrier cost, acceptance, routing and equipment are.

Practical guidance is unchanged: keep CFR validity short, and ask for freight decomposed — base ocean freight, peak season surcharge, war-risk, security, congestion, detention, demurrage and free days. A single all-in number that moves after an event cannot be checked against the event.

Supplier markets

Public UK and US East Coast dock buying levels were again unavailable, for a seventh consecutive week. The offer side of this market remains far better published than the cost side — worth remembering whenever an increase is presented as a market fact rather than as one company’s position.

Where sellers can quote FOB or ex-works, freight becomes priceable separately from the material. In a month when the freight number is moving faster than the material number — and moving very differently by lane — that separation is the cleanest way to keep the two arguments apart.

Container equipment and slot availability remain the binding supplier-side constraint for September loading, and remain unreported by any public source. It is the same constraint that publishers named as the cause of the Pakistan price move in late August, seen from the other end of the trade.

Non-ferrous snapshot

No numeric official settlements were publicly exposed today. Copper is reported as remaining near record territory and zinc near a multi-year high; neither figure is available with a date and a tenor attached, so neither should be used to fix anything.

The contract-hygiene point is the one to take away, and it applies well beyond this week. Official cash, three-month, closing and screen prices are separate series and are not interchangeable. When fixing, name four things: the metal, the tenor, the price type, and the publication.

A related trap worth flagging because it is easy to fall into after a public holiday: a price series that carries a value forward across a non-trading day still shows a row dated for the non-trading day. A figure stamped with today’s date is not necessarily a figure set today. Check whether the number moved, not whether the row exists.

Policy

The US allocation order covering black mass and tungsten waste and scrap remains in force through 27 August 2027 unless changed. A clarification worth noting: the issuing agency may grant company-specific or general adjustments and exceptions, but such relief does not replace any separate export-control authorisation that may be required. Those are two independent requirements, and satisfying one does not satisfy the other.

Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue continues to list the general order covering the PKR 5 per unit electricity-linked sales-tax treatment for qualifying iron and steel manufacturers. The concession applies to named eligible producers only, conditioned on imported-scrap purchasing thresholds; non-listed mills pay a substantially higher rate. Confirm whether a specific mill actually qualifies before treating the concession as relevant to it.

Pakistan-bound commercial imports continue to require the consignee’s NTN or FTN identifier on documentation, confirmed before final bill-of-lading instructions. A missing identifier causes manifest rejection and discharge delay, and it costs nothing to check in advance.

Glossary

• CFR — cost and freight; the seller pays ocean freight to the destination port, the buyer carries insurance and transit risk.
• FOB / EXW — free on board / ex works; the buyer arranges and pays for onward transport, so freight is priced separately from the material.
• 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, quoted per container.
• 20ft / 40ft / 45ft — container sizes. Dense cargo such as scrap is limited by weight rather than volume, so a larger box does not necessarily carry more tonnes.
• Official cash vs three-month — two distinct exchange price series; cash settles near-immediately, three-month is the forward benchmark. They routinely differ materially.