Final thoughts: Ferrous market stagnates, EV shifts in other direction and tariff talks loom

After canvassing several scrap industry players, it seems the consensus for the ferrous market is basically sideways to slightly weaker for the next month, maybe two. The demand for scrap has slacked as mills are taking outages or just scaling back production. This is not that unusual as we go into summer. However, this year the mills are experiencing a downturn in HRC sales and pricing. They are only buying what they need to run at reduced rate. This is hanging over the scrap market even though scrap availability is starting to decline with lower prices.

The EV market consumer sentiment, as Gabriella Vagnini explains in her article, is a consequential change for both the automotive and steel segments. The non-ferrous and ferrous markets will be impacted if the demand for cars swings back to ICE’s. Some good, but mostly bad. The automotive sector has invested a tremendous amount of capital to accomplish this transition. It’s hard to predict what effects this will have over the next few years. Also, what about the carbon footprint a return primarily to the ICE will have on the plan for decarbonizing? There certainly has been a lot of time and money devoted to this, as well.