US ferrous scrap exports gain almost 28%

Global – With the exception of South Korea and India, all major overseas buyers of US ferrous scrap upped their orders in the opening four months of 2017, according to Census Bureau and International Trade Commission statistics.

As a result, America’s exports to all destinations climbed 27.7% year on year from 3.113 million tonnes in the first four months of 2016 to 3.974 million tonnes by the same stage of 2017.

Turkey continued to lead the way, purchasing 857 499 tonnes in the January-April period for a year-on-year increase of 3.1%.

However, this gain was eclipsed by the surges in shipments to Mexico (+82.1% year on year to 542 774 tonnes), Taiwan (+55.2% to 485 329 tonnes), China (+381.4% to 309 407 tonnes), Vietnam (+1087.4% to 278 776 tonnes) and Canada (+147% to 222 320 tonnes).

Higher volumes were also dispatched from the USA to Thailand (+32.6% to 175 401 tonnes), Peru (+24.2% to 158 059 tonnes) and Bangladesh (+56.8% to 122 585 tonnes).

Also in this year’s January-April period, US ferrous scrap shipments to South Korea tumbled 38.6% to 202 509 tonnes while India’s purchases were slashed by 73.6% to 122 993 tonnes.