Amounts paid by steel mills in the United States for ferrous scrap in October could be described as flat, but, as plateaus go, this one is fairly high in altitude.
According to data collected for the Raw Material Data Aggregation Service (RMDAS) of Management Science Associates, Pittsburgh, domestic mills paid an average of $262 per ton for No. 1 heavy melting steel and $323 per ton for No. 1 busheling and bundles.
Although prices are healthy, ferrous scrap recyclers remain concerned about several other matters. Ideally, strong prices can provide comfortable margins, but, even so, income and profits can be limited if scrap flow slows down to a trickle.
A scrap ...