Steel Products Prices North America
October 9, 2014
Ferrous Scrap Exports from the US through August
Written by Peter Wright
In the first eight months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 10,404,531 metric tons, down by 18.7 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of August exports were 1,575,716 tonnes, this was the highest volume month of the year, beating out May by 26,000 tons. Figure 1 shows that the three month moving average has been fairly consistent for the last four months through August and continued to be lower than the average in any year from 2008 through 2013. The most obvious trends so far this year are the decline of Turkey and Taiwan since May and the increase of Korea in three months through August. Year to date Turkey is down by 1.2 million tons or 33.8 percent. China’s tonnage has been quite consistently low this year on a 3MMA basis ranging from 53,000 to 90,000 tons per month. This is compared to over 500,000 tonnes per month in 2009 when they were the highest volume importer.
