We did not see much movement in the Scrap Copper Prices market this week, but we did see the start of a small uptrend. We’re also starting to hear more and more rumblings about overseas scrap copper prices and zinc production in Europe, potential gas shortages now, and as winter enters, we may start to see a supply squeeze in a region that hasn’t seen much action lately. 6 to 7 months.
It Could Help To Hold Copper, Into Q4
If you plan to hold onto your material for an upward price volatility as you enter fall, you may want to be prepared to cash out in September or October. As the scrap copper prices market bottomed out at a trading level of $3.15 per pound, we’ve seen the market regain strength over the past few months, adding $0.50 per pound. This was slightly higher this morning before a small drop, but it’s still a positive sign entering the Fall and Winter seasons.
Copper Scrap – Wait a Few Weeks
Scrap copper prices have risen by $0.50 per pound since the bottom and we may start to see this price increase even more. As we head into next year, we expect more green energy initiatives to kick in, and that could be driving up the price of copper, and then you’d add the electric vehicle issue to the mix and you could see even more of that.
Rice Scrap – Sell While Strong
Brass is a product we continue to recommend selling because you need to be able to move material and have cash flow. But with a potential sink shortage, you can see the price of brass rise more steadily than the price of copper.
Aluminum Scrap – Get Ready for Increase
As mentioned earlier, we think the aluminum price will increase significantly in the next few months. If you are using higher grade aluminum, this increase can be between $0.10-0.30 per pound; Fall or winter may be a good time to continue preparing to unload.
Energy Column Scrap – Oil and Gas Prices
Gas prices have dropped to $3.86 per gallon for this week. This is the lowest prices since March 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. There are some concerns about Russia’s decision to shut down the Nordstream I gas pipeline to Europe this winter. If that happens, Europeans will have to adopt other heating methods, which may be petroleum-based. Declines in crude oil prices have been an important part of our continuous decline in gasoline and diesel prices. However, don’t be shocked if this price pattern reverses as crude oil becomes a more expensive input to refineries.
Steel Scrap – Sell Light Stuff
Steel prices also continued to rise steadily, with light iron prices increasing by $30-40 per ton over the past 40 days. These are nice price hikes and if you’re interested in holding supplies, we continue to recommend that you hold very heavy items, but always unload your light and bulky items so that you don’t waste any more of your time.
Bonus: Catalytic Converters – prices have dropped over the past few days after the spike late last week. But they still stay at an average price of over $160 per cat. We’ve read numerous articles and some predictions for catalytic converter prices going into 2023, which we’ll discuss in a members-only video.
What Countries Are Holding Onto Scrap?
With carbon emissions front of mind from both a private and public sector perspective on a global scale, it will be interesting to see how quickly scrap metal is adopted as the primer alternative to reduce overall emissions. There are signs throughout the global market of countries that see the value in keeping their scrap metal within their borders. There are various trade quantity restrictions emerging on scrap At least a handful of big-name countries like China, Russia, and Japan have announced export restrictions, perceiving the importance of keeping at home more recycled raw materials for their steel and metals production.
Best Copper Deals
The least costly processes such as fracturing, flotation and leaching are extremely large-scale operations in the mining industry. These are the basic manufacturing processes to produce the graphite, lithium, nickel and other components needed to find the overall energy transition. The good news is that these mining processes are slightly less affected by increased energy costs compared to the more energy-intensive industrial processes in the semiconductor and PV silicon (solar) industry, as their original cost to run these processes is relatively low. These processes can be found under photolithography, sputtering and vapor deposition in the upper right corner of the chart.
Emphasizing the use of scrap metal energy is an important initiative the metal industry should take to educate the public and correct misunderstandings. For example, steel produced using scrap in electric arc furnaces can only produce one-third of the CO2 emissions of steel made from iron ore and coal in a blast furnace.
