Low demand dents Japanese domestic, export ferrous scrap markets

摘要

Japanese scrap prices continued to tumble this week, pushed down by disappointing demand in both the domestic and export markets, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday January 30. “Steel mill production and demand in Japan is not so good, so scrap prices are decreasing, but scrap generation is also poor,” one scrapyard source said “So even though the local mills’ buying prices are falling, I don’t know if collection prices can follow them down,” he added. Purchase prices for H2-grade (heavy melt) scrap at the Tokyo Steel’s Utsunomiya plant will fall to ￥23,500 per tonne ($215 per tonne) on January 31. This was the third decline in a week and put prices down ￥1,500 per tonne compared with ￥25,000 per tonne on January 1.