US Steel Scrap Prices Ease Through August as Mill Margins Widen, Epignosis Insights Finds

Domestic Scrap Prices Retreat as HRC Spot Prices Keep Climbing

Epignosis Insights, a market research and brand intelligence consultancy, today published its latest US Steel Scrap Price Tracker, a weekly report covering domestic and export ferrous scrap pricing across the six weeks ending July 25 through August 29, 2026. The tracker finds that US mill-delivered prices for #1 busheling, HMS 1&2, and shredded scrap grades eased by roughly 5% over the period, even as Nucor Corporation’s hot-rolled coil (HRC) consumer spot price rose in three consecutive weekly increments, from $1,155 per short ton in early August to $1,180 per short ton by the week of August 24.

The divergence between falling input costs and rising finished-steel prices has widened the metal margin available to electric-arc-furnace (EAF) producers, according to the report, even as it has tightened the economics facing scrap generators, processors, and brokers who supply the mills.

Mill Demand Softens Without Falling Off a Cliff

The report ties the price softness to a modest cooling in domestic mill activity. Citing weekly production data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Epignosis Insights notes that US raw steel output slipped from 1.870 million net tons in the week ending August 1 to 1.820 million net tons in the week ending August 8, with the capability utilization rate easing from 81.0% to 78.8% over the same span, before output partially recovered to an estimated 1.848 million net tons by the week ending August 22.

“Mills are still running near four-fifths of capability, and year-to-date production remains well ahead of last year’s pace,” the report states. “What has shifted is the marginal urgency with which buyers are chasing tonnage, and that has given them room to let settlement prices drift lower without triggering a supply response.”

Export Market Holds Firmer Than Domestic Tags

While US domestic grades softened, the report finds that the export channel — priced primarily off cost-and-freight (CFR) cargo deals into Turkey, the world’s largest scrap importer — held comparatively steady across the same period, settling in a narrow $371–$375 per metric tonne band for HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix) material. That relative firmness, the report notes, reflects tighter availability from Northern European and Baltic origin points and has pulled incremental US tonnage toward coastal export terminals even as posted domestic mill tags eased.

Company Disclosures Corroborate the Trend

The tracker cross-references public company data to validate the top-down pricing picture. Commercial Metals Company (CMC) disclosed in its fiscal third-quarter 2026 results a North America average cost of ferrous scrap utilized of $379 per ton against a steel products metal margin of $610 per ton, figures the report characterizes as consistent with a market moving from spring-time cost pressure toward a genuine late-summer inflection. Nucor Corporation, meanwhile, reported approximately 7.1 million tons of steel-mill shipments in the second quarter of 2026, underscoring the scale of scrap demand a single domestic producer represents.

A Multi-Source Methodology

Consistent with its standard research practice, Epignosis Insights compiled the tracker from a deliberately diversified base of sources spanning five categories: US government statistical agencies (the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Commerce), industry associations (AISI and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries), public company disclosures (Nucor and CMC), price-reporting and consulting firms (Fastmarkets and S&P Global), and trade press coverage (Steel Market Update, Kallanish, and iScrapApp). No single source is cited more than once, a methodological discipline the firm applies across its commodity tracker series.

The report also draws on two federal data points to frame the broader trade backdrop. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index for June 2026 identified iron and steel scrap as one of the stage-1 intermediate-demand inputs that rose even as the broader final-demand index slipped, while the Department of Commerce reported that licenses to import steel into the United States surged in July to their highest level since June 2025. Neither indicator moves weekly prices on its own, the report notes, but together they help explain why participants describe current conditions as balanced rather than acutely tight or loose.

Grading Standards Ensure Comparable Data

All grade references in the tracker follow the classification framework maintained by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI, operating under the Recycled Materials Association brand), whose specifications for #1 busheling, #1 and #2 heavy melting steel, and shredded scrap function as the common commercial language between generators, processors, mills, and export traders. This standardization is what allows a Midwest delivered settlement and a Turkish CFR cargo price to be meaningfully compared on a like-for-like grade basis, even though the two markets clear through very different logistics and buyer bases.

Outlook: A Market Searching for Direction

Looking ahead to September, Epignosis Insights report describes a market that is stabilizing rather than committing to a clear directional move. Sentiment surveys from consulting firms point to only shallow further softening in the near term, while seasonally stronger autumn steel demand and a scrap-cost base that has already retraced much of its earlier strength create conditions for at least a plateau, and potentially a modest restocking-led firming, in prime grades over the coming weeks.

“Export markets are likely to remain the swing factor,” the report concludes. “Any renewed weakness in domestic tags without a matching move in Turkish CFR levels would continue to pull incremental tonnage toward coastal terminals, tightening effective domestic availability even as posted mill tags stay soft.”