Ferrous market upward price momentum continues into March

Initial negotiations for March domestic mill purchases of recycled steel are pointing to continued upward price momentum for the secondary commodity in the United States.

As described by a March 11 report from Davis Index, mill buyers and shippers in the U.S. Midwest are negotiating whether certain grades would rise from $20 or up to $40 per ton, but increases were uniformly on the agenda.

The pricing and information service says obsolete grades such as heavy melting steel (HMS) and plate and structural are likely to rise by $20 per ton in the Midwestern market, while processors are seeking $40 per ton more for shred and prompt scrap (and mills only want to pay $30 per ton more for those benchmark grades).

Another source of upward price pressure may also be coming from overseas. In the past few weeks, Davis Index had been reporting a lull in interest from Turkish mills and other buyers of U.S. ferrous scrap.

However, in the second week of March the pricing service is reporting prices are starting to tick upward on the U.S. West Coast and bidders from Bangladesh and Pakistan also are raising bids incrementally for imported scrap.

On the domestic front, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recorded a 1.8 percent increase in American steel melt shop output in the first week of March this year compared with the final week of February,

Any positive momentum in domestic steel output likely will be welcomed by steel recyclers and producers in the U.S. Year to date through March 8, 2025, American steel output is down 1.3 percent compared with the same time frame last year.

Tariffs designed to boost output at American mills may be having their desired effect, based on U.S. Commerce Department statistics aggregated by AISI.

According to the trade group, Commerce Department Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data shows that steel import permit applications for the month of February 2025 totaled 2,137,000 tons.

That figure, says AISI, represents a 26.4 percent decrease from the 2.9 million permit tons recorded in January 2025 and a 10.6 percent decrease from 2.39 million total imports accepted last February.

The Donald J. Trump administration has issued tariff orders that have at times been retracted, delayed or modified within days or even hours of an initial announcement.

While AISI does not issue a comment on every White House tariff maneuver, on March 10, AISI was one of five trade groups that wrote a letter to President Trump saying in part, “We welcome and applaud your actions to restore the integrity of the Section 232 tariffs on steel and your commitment to restoring a level playing field for American steel producers and their workers.”

The other trade groups signing that letter were the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), the Specialty Steel Industry of North America (SSINA), the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the U.S. OCTG [oil country tubular goods] Manufacturers Association (USOMA).”