TDC Ventures

Daily Market Note — 2026-09-29

4 min read

Daily Market Note — 2026-09-29

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

The read

Pakistan’s imported shredded market is unchanged for a fourth session: the freshest verified physical evidence sits near $417/MT CFR Port Qasim, with supplier offers a few dollars higher at $420–425/MT. The new development is on the energy side — Saudi Arabia has resumed tanker loadings from Yanbu and oil has slipped — but Gulf shipping is not back to normal.

No newer public Pakistan shredded trade dated 29 or 30 September was verified, so the $417/MT level is carried forward from earlier physical evidence within a recent $416–420/MT range. Published benchmarks remain mostly behind paywalls: BigMint’s latest public Pakistan assessment is dated 25 September, SMM’s daily Port Qasim assessment continues, and Fastmarkets publishes its weekly index on Fridays.

Key moves

  • Pakistan imported shredded — physical range $416–420/MT CFR; UK and EU offers $420–425/MT, a gap of roughly $3–8/MT.
  • Turkiye and the US East Coast — SteelOrbis’ weekly page shows HMS 1&2 80:20 CFR Turkiye up 1.29% week on week, its Turkish Scrap Index up 2.9% and its US East Coast HMS export index up 4.9%. These support supplier firmness but do not translate directly into Pakistan pricing.
  • Oil — Brent fell to roughly $103/bbl and WTI to about $91/bbl. Middle East crude exports reached 12.8 million barrels per day in September, the highest since February.
  • Currency and fuel — the Pakistani rupee closed at about 277.12 per US dollar; petrol was cut to PKR 389.03 and diesel to PKR 404.97 per litre, lowering inland trucking costs.

Freight and shipping

  • Yanbu restart: Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West Pipeline and Yanbu loadings are running around 2 million barrels per day; analysts expect pipeline throughput to rise toward 3–4 million barrels per day, with full recovery possibly taking about a month.
  • Hormuz: Qatar-linked LNG traffic has increased, but Gulf shipping still relies partly on costly ship-to-ship transfers and abnormal operating methods. Lower oil does not yet show up as lower container freight.
  • Carrier surcharges: Maersk’s Pakistan peak-season and emergency surcharges are unchanged — Far East origins USD 2,000 per 40-foot or 45-foot container, North Europe and Mediterranean USD 300 per 20-foot and USD 500 per 40-foot or 45-foot, Middle East USD 2,050 per 20-foot and USD 3,500 per 40-foot or 45-foot.
  • Port Qasim: the 29 September programme shows one container vessel due to sail and four to berth, with normal container and bulk handling.

Supplier markets

  • Offer levels: UK and EU shredded offers have held at $420–425/MT for four sessions.
  • UAE: Dubai’s temporary restriction on specified iron, copper and aluminium scrap remains active through 8 October 2026 unless changed or exempted.
  • EU: the Commission’s draft non-OECD waste list would not authorise Pakistan for ferrous or non-ferrous metal waste from 21 May 2027 if adopted unchanged. The consultation is open until 16 October 2026. This is a draft, not current law; EU e-waste exports to non-OECD countries are already prohibited.

Non-ferrous snapshot

Three-month LME copper traded near $14,460/MT on Tuesday, with an intraday range of roughly $14,403–14,471, rebounding modestly after a 1.4% fall on Monday but still below last week’s highs. China’s refined copper output growth is expected to slow sharply in 2026 on tight concentrate and scrap feedstock and scheduled smelter maintenance, which keeps scrap markets supported.

Glossary

  • CFR — cost and freight; the seller pays ocean freight to the destination port, the buyer carries insurance and transit risk.
  • Port Qasim — Pakistan’s main deep-water import terminal, near Karachi.
  • Shredded (ISRI 211) — processed scrap of consistent size and density, the main containerised grade into Pakistan.
  • PSS / ECS — peak-season and emergency-contingency surcharges that container lines add to base freight.
  • Yanbu / East-West Pipeline — Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export terminal and the pipeline that carries crude to it, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
  • LME 3M — the London Metal Exchange’s three-month forward reference price, the standard benchmark for base-metal scrap formulas.
  • Non-OECD waste-shipment rules — EU regulations governing which countries outside the OECD may receive specified waste exports, including scrap metal, from EU member states.

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