Booming US ferrous scrap exports to Pakistan and Bangladesh

United States – Growth of 13.2% in ferrous scrap exports to Turkey helped the USA to increase its overseas shipments to all destinations by more than 2.2 million tonnes when calculated across the first 11 months of last year.

Total exports from America surged almost 20% from a little over 11.5 million tonnes in January-November 2016 to approaching 13.78 million tonnes in the corresponding months of 2017, according to latest figures published by the US Census Bureau.

Deliveries to leading buyer Turkey climbed from 2.88 million tonnes to 3.26 million tonnes when comparing the two 11-month periods, with Mexico (+10.5% to 1.61 million tonnes) and Taiwan (+5.5% to 1.29 million tonnes) the other two countries to receive more than a million tonnes of ferrous scrap from the USA.

Next came China on 957 787 tonnes (+28% year on year) and Canada on 833 449 tonnes (+23%).

Eye-catching increases in US purchases were also recorded by Pakistan and Bangladesh: the former upped its order by around 59% in January-November 2017 to 641 491 tonnes while the latter all but doubled its total to 584 205 tonnes.

In contrast, US shipments to India tumbled more than 37% year on year to 665 737 tonnes.