Rounding the corner into 2027 you couldn’t ask for a better setup for scrap steel prices!
Price increases in the last two months, and for Heavy melt #1 steel there hasn’t been a price decrease since October 2025!
All great stories for the scrap steel market now and in the future! 2026 really was a story of non-ferrous metals grabbing the headlines. Copper hit an all time high and is still trading right around $6.30 per pound. One year ago that number was $4.90 per pound–so this year has been a dramatic increase for copper based on the usual themes–electrification, AI trade and green technology. Aluminum also was in the forefront with huge increases in the midwest premium driving the numbers up before the recent fall with the LME following suit.
But scrap steel has been lurking in the background with a very steady year that all of a sudden has shown two increases in a row! According to Fastmarkets the Philadelphia region, which our area of Lancaster, York, Leola and Ephrata reside in has gone up $20 per ton for steel scrap pretty much across the board. This would include the busheling category, also known as galvanized steel, foundry steel, which would include mild steel or steel without copper, nickel and other hardening additives and those AR 500 type alloys of steel that have the hardeneing elements in them. These grades, plus steel turnings, hubs and rotors, lite iron, shredder, rebar and pretty much any other steel category you can think of are up $20 this month.
With the increase, Sahd Metal Recycling has increased our prices over the scale for customers no matter what quantity of metal they bring in. That price list which is updated every day is here. We believe in transparency as a core value so we are always willing to put our prices out there, with daily updates. Our industrial and commercial business partners have already received their upfront formula pricing for the month showing their increases by grade.
The big news this month is not just the increase, but in fact what is holding pricing back from further increases. Both Pittsburgh and Cleveland increased by $30 this month, widening the gap between our markets. In fact, right now the Pittsburgh market is $30/ton higher than the Philadelphia market and that fact has been pulling scrap metal further west. Obviously in this high diesel price environment it costs more money to ship it further, putting a premium on rail service or the dealers who have yards further west.
Why is the price lower in our region than the west–simply supply and demand and the drag the export market has on scrap here. If you are close to a port so much of the price difference is absorbed in the shipping costs, so net costs may be neutral or even underwater by moving scrap west. When export prices drag, domestic markets closer to the water know they don’t have to stretch to buy scrap to keep it in the market. That is even more profound with the high cost of fuel, not only for us to bring metal back to the yard but to then ship it further.
So, a very positive start to November and a very uplifting end of 2026 for the scrap steel prices in our area! If we are ever able to get less international weakness and a stronger export market we’d be looking really good for even bigger increases–that could be on the horizon for 2027!
