HMS scrap is the ferrous grade that moves seaborne cargoes. When a mill in Turkey, a trader in Rotterdam and a yard in Duisburg talk about HMS, they mean prepared heavy melting steel: iron and steel cut to charging size, not a mixed pile of sheet and dirt. It is ferrous scrap, not copper, not aluminium, and not shredded. The name is commercial. The specifications sit in ISRI nomenclature.

HMS 1 and HMS 2 are the two preparations. The 80/20 mix is how most bulk lots are actually sold. Understanding those three terms is how you read a ferrous offer, price a cargo and know what a mill will charge.

What HMS scrap is

HMS stands for heavy melting steel, sometimes written heavy melting scrap. It is obsolete wrought iron or steel: demolition beams, plate, ship and machine scrap, industrial dismantling. It is not new factory clippings (that is busheling). It is not fragmentiser output (that is shredded). It is the heavy, prepared feedstock of electric-arc and many induction furnaces.

The metal has to be cut so a furnace can take it. Thickness, piece size, dirt, galvanising and non-ferrous attachments decide whether a lot is HMS 1, HMS 2 or something else. A magnet will pull it. A mill will still reject it if the pieces are too thin, too long, or full of copper, tin, sealed units and muck.

In Europe you will also hear E1, E3 and E40. Those are EU ferrous specs used on the domestic mill market. Export emails, and most cargoes into the Mediterranean and South Asia, still say HMS. If a listing says only “HMS”, it is not a grade yet. Ask which number and which mix.

What HMS 1 is

HMS 1 is the better preparation. Under ISRI 200 it is wrought iron or steel about 6 mm thick and up, cut to charging-box size, typically around 150 × 60 cm so it goes into a furnace without further burning. Beams, heavy plate, ship steel and thick machine scrap belong here when they are prepared.

What does not belong: thin sheet, wire, turnings, excessive dirt, non-ferrous attachments, sealed containers, munitions. Galvanised and light-gauge material is the usual reason a lot falls out of No. 1. HMS 1 is a volume grade, but it is still a specification. Calling demolition steel “HMS 1” without the thickness and the cut is how sellers lose the premium and buyers open a claim.

Mills want HMS 1 because the charge is dense, the yield is predictable and residuals are easier to control than in a mixed light pile. That is why No. 1 pays more than No. 2, and why yards spend money on shears.

What HMS 2 is

HMS 2 is still heavy melting steel, prepared, but lighter or more mixed than No. 1. The export size most often quoted is ISRI 204: about 90 × 45 cm. Black or galvanised steel that fails the HMS 1 thickness test sits here. Properly prepared auto scrap can be included. Sheet iron and thin gauge are the complaints that turn a No. 2 lot into something a mill will not charge as HMS at all.

HMS 2 melts. It is not scrap to be ashamed of. It is a different recipe: more surface, more coating risk, a different density in the box. A mill that budgeted for HMS 1 and receives a cargo of light HMS 2 has paid for yield it will not get. The spread between the two grades is why inspection at load and discharge still matters on ferrous cargoes that look, to a layman, like the same pile of steel.

The 80/20 mix

Eighty/twenty is not an ISRI code. It is a commercial blend: 80 percent HMS 1 and 20 percent HMS 2, usually 200 and 204. That ratio is the benchmark cargo into Turkey and a large part of the Mediterranean and South Asian seaborne market. Indexes that traders quote as “HMS 80/20 CFR Turkey” are talking about this mix, not about pure No. 1.

Other ratios exist: 70/30, 60/40. They are cheaper and they melt differently. If the contract does not state the ratio, the cheaper interpretation will win the argument. Write HMS 1&2 80/20, name the ISRI numbers, and say the packing and the port. “HMS scrap for sale” is not a specification.

The mix exists because a full cargo of pure HMS 1 is not always what the yard produces, and a mill does not always want to pay No. 1 money for every tonne. 80/20 is the compromise the market settled on: enough heavy steel for the furnace, enough No. 2 to make the cargo available. Change the ratio and you change the price. That is the deal.

Why mills buy HMS

Steelworks buy HMS because it is scrap they can plan a heat around. An electric-arc furnace running on scrap needs a known density, a limit on dirt and a limit on residual copper and tin. Prepared HMS, especially No. 1 and a declared 80/20, is that charge. Shredded (ISRI 211) is the other furnace-ready ferrous product; busheling is the premium industrial grade. HMS is the workhorse in between: demolition and obsolete steel, cut and specified, in the quantities a mill programme requires.

Mills buy it in programmes, not as a curiosity. A cargo that matches the spec can be scheduled. A mixed ferrous pile cannot. That is why a mill buyer is strict about piece size, why they care about the 80/20 split, and why they prefer a yard or trader who will stand behind a discharge assay. The recycling cycle closes at the furnace. HMS is how a large part of European obsolete steel gets there.

They also buy it because Europe generates more ferrous scrap than many other regions consume at home, and because EAF steelmaking needs that scrap as raw material. HMS is not a green label. It is a named input. The mill pays for preparation; it will not pay the same for an unidentified mix.

How to offer HMS on a lot

Name the grade the mill already uses. HMS 1, HMS 2, or HMS 1&2 80/20. Add the ISRI number if you have it: 200, 204. Then quantity in tonnes, packing or whether it is bulk, city or port, and the company. “HMS 1, ISRI 200, 500 t, ex works Duisburg” can be read in any language. “Iron scrap” cannot.

If the lot is shredded, say shredded or 211, not HMS. If it is new clippings, say busheling. If you are not sure it meets 6 mm, do not call it HMS 1. The spread between neighbouring ferrous grades is the profit and the claim. Using the better name for the worse preparation is how that claim starts.

HMS scrap is heavy melting steel. HMS 1 is the thick, prepared grade. HMS 2 is the lighter prepared cousin. 80/20 is the mix the seaborne market treats as the standard cargo. Mills buy it because it is a furnace recipe they can run. The rest is specification, and specification is what makes the lot tradable.