Daily Market Note — 2026-09-04

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

The read

Pakistan’s three-tier shredded structure held for a second straight session — the more interesting move today is in oil and Gulf shipping risk, not price.

Yesterday’s clean read on Port Qasim shredded — bids around $410–412/MT CFR, deals $413–417, standard offers $420–422, premium-yard material $425 and above, premium UAE-origin near $430 — repeated essentially unchanged today. The most recent detailed public assessment still stands at $417/MT CFR Port Qasim, and no fresher numeric read was available at the time of writing. A structure that holds for a second session without a fresh print behind it is neither confirmed nor broken — it is simply still the best available reference.

What did move is the risk backdrop. Brent crude traded near $96/bbl and WTI near $92/bbl, both on track for their strongest weekly gain since mid-July — roughly 7–10% over the week. Reported Gulf shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz eased further, with commodity vessel transits reported at four on Thursday against nine on Wednesday and a ten-day average near fifteen; transit counts through this corridor have been revised significantly in past weeks, so treat the trend as directional rather than a precise number. Traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait also eased.

None of that has yet shown up as a fresh Pakistan price print, but it is exactly the kind of backdrop that keeps freight, insurance and routing costs elevated even while the underlying scrap benchmark sits still.

Key moves

• Pakistan imported shredded — structure unchanged from yesterday: assessment $417/MT CFR Port Qasim, deals $413–417, standard offers $420–422, buyer bids $410–412, premium-yard $425+, premium UAE-origin ~$430. No newer numeric Pakistan print was available at the time of writing.
• UK-origin HMS 80:20 offered $390–395/MT CFR Port Qasim, and Middle East-origin sheared HMS booked $405–410/MT CFR — both repeating yesterday’s levels, which strengthens them from a single read to a persistent range.
• Turkey’s forward curve held: exchange contracts for steel scrap CFR Turkey closed at $385.50/MT for September and $394.00 for October, unchanged from the prior session. The physical Turkish HMS tape, however, moved up to around $380/MT CFR over the past two sessions — narrowing the forward-to-physical premium on the front contract to roughly $5–6, from around $9 previously.
• A recurring measurement caution, worth repeating for anyone following daily percentage-change commentary on these markets: a “since yesterday” move is only as good as the prior figure it’s compared against. Where a report states a session-on-session change, it is worth independently confirming what the actual prior-session level was before treating the stated move as reliable. Levels and dates are the durable objects; stated deltas often are not.
• India’s imported shredded market and the EU’s non-OECD waste-shipment review both remain live watchpoints but produced no fresh numeric development today.

Freight and shipping

No surcharge changed today. The published picture is unchanged for a fourth session:

• 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 (South Korea from 18 September); no revised 20ft figure has been published. The September revision is stated not to apply to spot bookings.
• Europe → Pakistan: $300 per 20ft, $500 per 40ft/40HC/45HC — unchanged.
• Freight into Pakistan is reported up around $5/MT on the session, with container equipment constraints potentially adding another $5–6/MT this week and up to $10/MT if availability does not improve — a cost-push that industry commentary attributes mainly to collection and container shortages rather than demand.

Gulf shipping risk is the session’s main freight-relevant development. Brent near $96/bbl and WTI near $92/bbl continue to support elevated bunker, war-risk and insurance costs. Reported Hormuz transits eased to four vessels on Thursday from nine on Wednesday, against a ten-day average near fifteen — as above, treat the count as directional given recent revisions to this series. Bab el-Mandeb traffic also eased, staying below its ten-day average. Destination operations remain unaffected: Port Qasim’s daily programme continued to show container vessels working normally, with no sailing, berthing or shifting cancellations reported.

Iran’s vessel blacklist and the associated transshipment-screening warnings carried over from prior sessions remain in force; no new designations were reported today.

Supplier markets

Public UK yard and US East Coast dock buying levels remain largely unavailable in daily commentary — the offer side of this market continues to be far better published than the underlying cost side.

UK-origin scrap was again reported offered around GBP 255–260/MT ex-works. Container equipment and slot availability remain the binding supplier-side constraint for near-term loading, and remain unreported by any public source — the same constraint identified as the driver of recent Pakistan offer moves, seen from the origin end of the trade.

On the demand side, Pakistan’s domestic steel chain is unchanged: mill operating rates are reported around 35–40%, local scrap around PKR 138,000–140,000/MT, billet around PKR 216,000–218,000/MT ex-works, and rebar around PKR 234,000–236,000/MT ex-works — leaving a thin rebar-over-billet finishing margin. A mill running at roughly a third to two-fifths of capacity on a narrow finishing spread has limited room to chase a rising import cost, which continues to cap how far offer-side firmness translates into higher buyer bids.

Non-ferrous snapshot

Reported LME levels (public trading summaries), where a complete reading was available:

• Zinc — cash around $4,113–4,115/t, three-month around $3,935–3,937/t. The cash premium over three-month remains wide, signalling continued tightness in nearby supply.
• Nickel — cash around $16,325–16,350/t, three-month around $16,650–16,675/t.
• Lead — cash around $1,873–1,874/t, three-month around $1,906–1,908/t.
• Tin — cash around $53,900–53,950/t, three-month around $54,290–54,300/t.
• Copper and aluminium — no complete public trading summary was available at the time of writing.

A standing caution worth repeating for anyone pricing non-ferrous scrap off headline exchange figures: official cash, official three-month, and closing prices are distinct series with distinct values and distinct publication dates. Before using any exchange figure in a formula, confirm the metal, the tenor, the price type, and the date — mixing series is one of the most common sources of pricing error in secondary commentary on these markets.

Glossary

• CFR — cost and freight; the seller pays ocean freight to the destination port, the buyer carries insurance and transit risk.
• EXW — 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 80:20 — heavy melting scrap in a standard 80:20 grade mix, the benchmark bulk ferrous grade.
• Sheared HMS — heavy melting scrap cut to size, typically denser and easier to charge than unprepared material.
• Billet — a semi-finished steel product, the intermediate stage between melting scrap and rolling rebar.
• PSS — peak season surcharge, a temporary carrier charge added to base ocean freight, quoted per container.
• Cash vs three-month — two points on the same exchange price curve; cash settles near-immediately, three-month is the standard forward benchmark. When cash trades above three-month (“backwardation”), it typically signals tight near-term supply.