Recycled steel price crosses $500 per ton threshold

Steel recyclers have moved from a market that spent 2024 seldom able to see a price boost to one that moved up the pricing ladder throughout the first three months of this year.

Mill buying figures collected and aggregated by the Raw Material Data Aggregation Service (RMDAS) of Pittsburgh-based MSA Inc. show prices that rose throughout the United States, but with one region experiencing wider gains than the other two.

In the period from Feb. 21 to March 20, prices for three benchmark grades in the RMDAS North Midwest region rose by from $23 to $35 per ton. (The firm’s North Midwest region consists of mills in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and the northwest corner of Indiana.)

In that region, for the past 30 days mills have been paying an average of $501 per ton for the RMDAS prompt industrial composite grade, which it defines as consisting of new production scrap, including No. 1 busheling, No. 1 bundles and No. 1 factory bundles.

Tthat benchmark grade and two others (No. 2 shredded scrap and No. 1 heavy melting steel) rose by from $23 to $29 per ton in the RMDAS North Central/East region, with a territory that runs east to west from New England through to Michigan and the rest of Indiana.

Prices moved up faster in February and March in the two northern regions than in the RMDAS South region, which runs north to south from western Virginia to the Gulf Coast.

During much of the most recent RMDAS buying period, mills or traders in the U.S. were bracing to pay a 25 percent tariff on any scrap they purchased from Canada or Mexico.

That tariff rate went into effect March 4 before two days later being paused for one month for imports determined to have a status in compliance with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which included metals for recycling.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data aggregated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), from 2020 to 2023, 71 percent of imported ferrous scrap purchased by American steel mills and foundries came from Canada, while just 12 percent was shipped from Mexico.

Canadian ferrous scrap for decades has had duty-free access to American mills, and it remains unclear how buyers and sellers on either side of the border will respond to the tariff.

During much of 2024, the RMDAS South region distinguished itself with higher per-ton prices rather than being the slower gainer as it was this March. Whether a new tariff-influenced market differentiator is now in place in the northern U.S. could play out in the next few months.