Daily Market Note — 2026-08-18
Market commentary on the global ferrous scrap trade. Not trading advice.
The read
Yesterday this note led with a striking figure: the Strait of Hormuz had recorded its first zero-transit day — five vessels on Saturday, none on Sunday.
That figure has been restated. Today’s data, from the same source, puts the weekend at three vessels Saturday and two Sunday. The total is identical at five. The zero is gone.
Worth correcting openly, because it changes what the number can carry. The aggregate collapse stands: five transits across a weekend against 31 the weekend before, roughly an 84% fall. What does not stand is the argument built on top of it. A zero reads differently from a low count — every other figure in this series can be argued down as undercounting, since much regional traffic now runs with transponders dark, and a zero cannot be. That was the point, and its premise has evaporated.
This is the second time in seven sessions that this series has contradicted itself. The direction has been unambiguous throughout; the daily precision has not.
Key moves
Monday’s traffic was six vessels against a ten-day average of eleven. More durable than the count: no VLCC and no LNG tanker transited at all. An entire vessel class going absent is categorical; a count of six can be revised to four.
The diplomatic picture worsened — Iran reported shifting to a fully offensive posture, the US ruling out extending the ceasefire, and a projectile striking a vessel exiting the strait on Tuesday. Monday beating the weekend is not normalisation.
In ferrous, Turkey is stable rather than breaking out. US-origin HMS 80:20 was assessed at $376 a tonne CFR Iskenderun, unchanged. The triangulation is the useful part: across four published references for the same date the assessments span roughly $373 to $379 — and the best cargo that actually traded last week was $376. Three of the four sit at or below that. An index clear of every transaction that produced it is a familiar configuration.
In India, Europe-origin HMS 80:20 in containers was assessed at $330 CFR Nhava Sheva, up $2 — between a bid side reported unworkable near $320 and offers at $340–345, which is what an assessment of a market with no bookings looks like. It sits roughly $43 below the Turkish bulk reference: containerised South Asia and deep-sea bulk are not competing for the same tonnage.
Freight and shipping
Brent reached $91.76 a barrel and WTI $85.55, the highest since 30 and 31 July. Oil above $90 raises the odds of higher bunker, insurance and deviation costs.
One caution cutting both ways: oil is an input to freight cost, not a freight quote. Cheaper crude did not make shipping cheaper in July, and the same logic applies now it has risen.
Bab el-Mandeb recorded 19 transits against a ten-day average of 26, with Houthi missile launches reported. That corridor carries most Europe-to-South-Asia container traffic and is drawing less attention than Hormuz.
Nothing has left the carrier surcharge stack. Maersk’s peak season surcharge to Pakistan holds at $300 per 20-foot and $500 per 40-foot and high-cube box; MSC’s Northern Europe congestion charge at $500; CMA CGM’s Middle East fuel surcharge and Hapag-Lloyd’s $35 per TEU operations charge both stand. On a 28-tonne box a $500 charge is $17.86 a tonne; on 25 tonnes, $20.00. That $2.14 gap often exceeds the price concession being argued over — achieved payload is a commercial term, not a logistics detail.
Supplier markets
Rhine logistics remain impaired after record-low water, with inland movement shifted to road and rail. No fresh gauge or dock price this session, so last week’s figures stand: a European exporter paying up to €280 a tonne delivered to fill an already-sold vessel, Benelux around €275, and no relief expected for at least three weeks.
The result is a split market. Domestic European demand is thin on summer shutdowns while the export chain is short of deliverable tonnage — different problems, different prices, and port-adjacent supply better placed than inland whatever the yard price says.
US ferrous scrap exports rose 4.5% year on year in the first half to 6.65 million tonnes, June alone up 25.7%. Mexico was the growth standout; Turkey stayed largest cumulatively despite an 8.4% decline. Notably, shipments to Bangladesh and India fell while exports to Pakistan increased — a backward-looking volume rather than a price signal, but a corrective to the assumption that Pakistani buying has stopped.
Non-ferrous snapshot
Copper closed near $14,160 a tonne three-month, zinc $3,756.50, lead cash around $1,846, zinc’s day-delayed official cash around $3,875. Aluminium exchange stocks remain reported at exceptionally low levels.
Worth more than any of those figures: cash, official settlement, three-month and closing are four different references, and on a given day they sit far enough apart to change what a parcel is worth. A formula saying “LME copper” without naming the exchange, the tenor and the published report has left its most important term undefined — and whoever chooses later will not choose against themselves.
Equally: a quoted price unchanged for four days may describe a market that has not moved, or a page that has not refreshed. Not the same thing.
Glossary
- CFR — Cost & Freight; the quoted price includes ocean freight to the buyer’s port.
- HMS 80:20 — Heavy Melting Scrap, an 80/20 mix of grades 1 and 2; the most traded bulk ferrous scrap.
- Cash vs three-month — metal for immediate versus three-month delivery. When cash costs more the market is backwardated, usually signalling prompt tightness.
- Payload — tonnage actually loaded into a container. Per-box charges divide across it, so a lighter box costs more per tonne.
- Index vs deal tape — an index is an assessor’s view; the deal tape is what actually traded. They diverge.