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    October 17, 2019

    CRU: Weak Steel Demand and Mill Outages Keep Scrap Demand Low

    By CRU Principal Analyst Chris Asgill

    Weak steel markets have continued to drive down scrap prices in many regions. In the key supply markets of Europe and the U.S., mills have taken outages as demand has failed to recover seasonally. Meanwhile in Japan, weak steel demand and high steel inventories have continued to limit steel production. Although inflows of scrap in these markets have slowed due to the weak pricing environment of recent months, this was not sufficient to offset the drop in demand during the October buy period. This has been compounded by the weakness in the key scrap importing markets of Turkey and Asia.

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