Scrap metal market wrap — July 2026

July was a broadly positive month for Australian scrap sellers. Copper finished as the strongest of the metals we track, up 4.4% from the start of the month, with brass and nickel close behind on 4.1% and 4.0%. Lead was the only metal to end July lower, and only barely, at -0.7%. The shape of the month mattered as much as the direction: most metals peaked in the last full week of July and then handed back part of that gain before the month closed.

The headline moves

Copper: $17.76 → $18.55 per kg (+4.4%)

Copper opened July at $17.76 per kilogram and closed at $18.55. The path there was not a straight line. It first sagged to a month low of $17.62 on 8 July, then ran hard to $19.83 on 23 July — the highest reading of the month and about 12% above that low — before easing back through the final week. Anyone who weighed in a load on the 23rd did considerably better than the month-end figure suggests.

Nickel: $21.57 → $22.43 per kg (+4.0%)

Nickel was the most volatile metal on the board. It bottomed at $21.29 on 6 July, peaked at $24.97 on 26 July — a swing of roughly 17% from low to high — and then gave back most of that spike to settle at $22.43. Because our stainless steel estimate is derived from the nickel content of 304-grade material, stainless traced the same shape at a much damped rate, rising 3.1% from $2.23 to $2.29 per kilogram.

Brass: $13.42 → $13.98 per kg (+4.1%)

Brass isn’t quoted as its own contract; our estimate is built from roughly two-thirds copper and one-third zinc. Its 4.1% gain is therefore a mechanical consequence of what copper and zinc did — mostly copper. It followed copper’s profile closely, with a $14.98 peak on 23 July and a $13.34 trough on 8 July.

Aluminium: $4.03 → $4.12 per kg (+2.1%)

Aluminium is the one metal that opened the month at its July low. From $4.03 on 1 July it climbed to $4.55 on 23 July before retreating to close at $4.12, a 2.1% gain. The distance between that high and the close is a useful reminder that a monthly percentage move can hide a much larger swing in between.

A general note on all of these figures: we publish in Australian dollars per kilogram, so every number above reflects both the underlying metal price and the AUD/USD exchange rate. A month where the Australian dollar softens will lift AUD-denominated scrap prices even if the metal itself hasn’t moved in US-dollar terms. We don’t attribute July’s gains to any single event, because the honest answer is that a month’s move is the sum of global demand, currency, and inventory effects that no one can cleanly separate after the fact.

What it means at the weighbridge

Percentages are abstract until they’re on a receipt, so here’s the arithmetic on a realistic load. Twenty kilograms of bare bright copper in Sydney, using our published payout rate of 78% of spot for that grade and Sydney’s 1.00× regional benchmark:

• 1 July: $17.76 × 0.78 × 20 kg ≈ $277.10
• 31 July: $18.55 × 0.78 × 20 kg ≈ $289.30

That’s $12.20 more for the same load, or about $14.47 per kilogram at month end. Worth having, but not life-changing on a domestic quantity.

Timing was worth more than the trend. The same 20 kg would have paid roughly $274.90 at copper’s 8 July low and about $309.35 at its 23 July high — a spread of $34 on a single small load, entirely down to which fortnight you drove to the yard. On a tonne of mixed copper, that same swing is the difference between an ordinary month and a good one. This is the argument for accumulating clean, sorted material and watching the numbers rather than clearing whatever is in the shed on a whim.

The quiet ones

Zinc had an unremarkable month, up 1.8% from $4.61 to $4.70, though it did touch $5.16 on 24 July in sympathy with the broader rally. Lead was the month’s only decliner, slipping 0.7% from $2.47 to $2.46 — effectively flat, having traded between $2.42 on 15 July and $2.72 on 26 July.

Steel needs a caveat rather than a figure. Our steel reference rate is a manually tracked constant, currently $0.42 per kilogram, reviewed quarterly against published Australian yard rate cards rather than fetched daily from an exchange. It was unchanged across July because we didn’t revise it, not because the ferrous market stood still. Treat it as a planning figure, not a market signal.

Where to look next

Every price on this site is refreshed daily, so the figures above are already history — the current prices for all eight metals are the ones that matter if you’re deciding when to sell. If you want to translate today’s rates into a number for your specific load, the scrap value calculator applies the same payout rates and regional adjustments used throughout this article. And if you’re not certain how your material will be graded at the weighbridge, our methodology page sets out exactly how we get from an exchange price to an estimated payout.