What a Dainan scrap yard's 2507 pricing formula reveals about China's duplex alloy recovery market

Most price discovery in Chinese stainless scrap happens in WeChat messages and whiteboards in yards like Dainan, not in exchange settlements. That makes the daily quotes published by scrap yards on Mysteel's aggregation pages unusually informative — not because a single day's move matters, but because the pricing architecture they expose tells you exactly which input the yard is actually watching.

The 21 October 2026 quotes from the Dainan Xinsheng yard (戴南信升货场) provide a clean example. And the day before they were published, something changed.

The move that broke a month of flat pricing

Dainan Xinsheng cut all three of its 2205 categories by roughly 200–300 yuan/t on 21 October, ending a flat run at 19,900–20,000 yuan/t for turnings (刨花) that had held since 15 October:

Source: Mysteel aggregation page for 2507废不锈钢价, yard quotes dated 24 Sep–21 Oct 2026. Midpoint arithmetic: 2205 turnings fell from about 19,950 to 19,750 yuan/t (−1.0% day-on-day); from the 12 October peak of roughly 20,200 to 19,750, that is −2.2% in nine days.

The simultaneous fall in both duplex scrap and pure molybdenum prices is the signal. The yard did not wait for nickel to move; it marked its entire book — including its molybdenum bid — down together, consistent with molybdenum leading the adjustment.

This coincides with a broadly weaker molybdenum complex in China during October: Mysteel's own molybdenum concentrate assessments fell from 5,430–5,460 yuan/tonne-unit on 9–14 October to 5,320–5,350 by 21 October, and ferromolybdenum dropped from 338,000–342,000 yuan/t on 10 October to roughly 325,000–330,000 by 23 October. Even so, molybdenum concentrate prices remained up around 46% year-to-date — the October move looks like a top-of-cycle correction rather than a trend reversal.

Why the 2507 formula matters more than the headline price

The yard publishes 2507 (UNS S32750 / 1.4410) scrap as a formula, not a fixed number. On 21 October: 2507 turnings = the 2205 price, plus 0.8 yuan per extra nickel unit, plus 4 yuan per extra molybdenum unit; 2507 furnace charge = turnings + 500 yuan/t.

The base is spelled out in the 15 October and 19 October postings — nickel 5, molybdenum 3 — i.e. the nominal 2205 specification. The 21 October entry abbreviates the wording but does not change the structure.

What does this tell us?

• The yard prices by composition, not by grade label. That is a practical response to the fact that super-duplex scrap arriving at a Dainan yard varies considerably in Ni and Mo content, particularly mixed turnings from valve, pump and offshore-component machining.
• The implied value of extra alloy is asymmetric. Molybdenum is worth five times nickel per unit in the yard's formula (4 vs 0.8). Whether the escalator is quoted per percentage point or per 0.1 percentage point is not stated in the source — a material ambiguity for anyone trying to reverse-engineer a hard 2507 number.
• Furnace charge carries a flat 500 yuan/t premium over turnings. This is a straightforward processing/consumption-quality premium. Turnings are oxidised, oil-coated and lower bulk density; solid furnace charge can go straight into an AOD or induction furnace.

On a compositional basis, 2507 (roughly 25% Cr, 7% Ni, 4% Mo) versus 2205 (roughly 22% Cr, 5% Ni, 3% Mo) implies ΔNi ≈ +2 and ΔMo ≈ +1. If the escalator is interpreted at face value on a per-tonne basis — ΔNi of 2 × 0.8 plus ΔMo of 1 × 4 — then the incremental alloy premium is trivial (about 5.6 yuan/t), which would make the formula economically meaningless. That strongly suggests the “unit” is actually larger than one percentage point, or the escalator is quoted in yuan/kg. Treat the absolute escalator value as unverified; the structure and the 1:5 Ni:Mo ratio are the reliable takeaways.

The molybdenum quotes on the same posting — 455 yuan/kg for pure molybdenum and 440 yuan/kg for piercer plugs (钼顶头, used in seamless tube piercing) — are the yard's bid for high-Mo material it buys outside the stainless scrap stream. Their 10 yuan/kg and 5 yuan/kg cuts on 21 October confirm the yard is repricing the whole molybdenum complex, not just duplex scrap.

The wider scrap market context

It helps to place the Dainan quotes against the broader scrap landscape captured in the same Mysteel aggregation:

The spread between 2205 and 2507 scrap — worth several thousand yuan per tonne in absolute terms — is not captured by a simple fixed-price difference in the sources. That is precisely the gap the formula is designed to bridge.

Another useful data point in the aggregation: Changzhou Hangxu quoted 2507 furnace charge at 19,500 yuan/t and turnings at 19,000 yuan/t in October 2024, with 2205 turnings at 16,500 yuan/t. That was a 2,500–3,000 yuan/t premium for 2507 over 2205 turnings at the time — consistent with the composition gap, and a reminder that the formula-based approach reflects real alloy-value economics.

The Jiujiang Pinggang tender — a reminder about the tendering channel

The aggregation also republishes an 8 April 2026 notice from Jiujiang Pinggang Steel (九江萍钢), which tendered roughly 44 t of waste stainless — 201, 304, 316, 316L and 2507 — via online auction on 24 April 2026, with qualification documents due by 22 April. Secondary aggregations put the 2507 share at around 8 t.

This is a useful comparison point rather than a news item in itself: mill tenders of small parcels (44 t in total is a single truck-plus load, not a market-moving volume) are how alloy-heavy grades like 2507 occasionally surface into the merchant scrap stream. Such parcels are typically bought by specialist yards or alloy recovery processors rather than mainstream mills, because the volumes are too small for a large stainless producer to bother with and the composition verification burden falls on the buyer.

What to watch

Three things matter for anyone following Chinese duplex scrap pricing into Q4 2026:

1. Whether the molybdenum correction extends. The October move was modest (−2.2% in pure Mo and −1.0% in 2205 turnings in one day) but it broke a month of flat pricing. If molybdenum concentrate continues to retreat from its record highs, expect 2507 scrap to fall faster than 2205 in percentage terms, because the formula weights Mo heavily.
2. Whether nickel diverges. So far the yard has adjusted duplex scrap in lockstep with molybdenum. If nickel moves independently — especially in either direction on LME — watch whether the yard's 0.8 coefficient changes. It has remained fixed across the visible October window, suggesting it is not being actively managed.
3. Whether other yards follow. The aggregation shows Changge Yaosheng (Henan) quoting 2205 separately (turnings ~18,700, industrial ~19,700 on 20 October), without a formula-linked 2507 price. If more yards adopt formula pricing, that would signal a maturing of how super-duplex scrap is transacted — replacing grade-label guesswork with composition-based valuation.

For a market that runs on WeChat confirmations and cash on the yard floor, that would be a meaningful step toward transparency.

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Note on sources and method: Price data, formulas and the Jiujiang Pinggang tender notice are reported as published on Mysteel's 2507废不锈钢价 aggregation page (updated 22 October 2026). Midpoint calculations, percentage changes, composition-based estimates and the interpretation of the yard's pricing behaviour are my own analysis. The unit basis of the nickel/molybdenum escalator is not stated in the source and should be treated as uncertain.