Turkey’s overseas steel scrap purchases jump 3.6%

The first half of 2024 brought a 3.6% year-on-year increase in Turkey’s overseas recycled steel purchases to 9.985 million tonnes, thus maintaining the country’s position as the world’s foremost recycled steel importer, according to worldsteel data presented at the latest BIR convention in Singapore.

Turkey’s main suppliers were the USA (+6.6% to 2.122 million tonnes), the Netherlands (+20.5% to 1.312 million tonnes) and the UK (+50.9% to 1.106 million tonnes).

India was the world’s second-largest recycled steel importer in the first six months of 2024 (-26.1% year on year to 3.881 million tonnes), with its main suppliers being the USA (-39.1% to 0.7 million tonnes) and the UK (-47.6% to 0.437 million tonnes). Vietnam occupied third place in the recycled steel importer league table despite a decrease of 18.1% in the first half of 2024 to 2.642 million tonnes.

Import USA, Mexico down

Lower year-on-year recycled steel imports were also recorded in January-June 2024 by the USA (-9% to 2.082 million tonnes), the EU-27 (-8.64% to 1.997 million tonnes), Taiwan (-8.6% to 1.992 million tonnes), Mexico (-20.2% to 1.210 million tonnes) and South Korea (-47.1% to 1.123 million tonnes).
By contrast, higher recycled steel imports were recorded by Pakistan in the first half of this year (+16.1% to 1.103 million tonnes).