4th edition of World Steel Scrap Statistics

Shanghai, 28 May 2013

The BIR Ferrous Division today announces during its meeting in Shanghai the publication of the 4th edition of “World Steel Recycling in Figures”.

This important compilation of statistics on the global ferrous scrap markets has enjoyed tremendous success since it appeared for the first time in 2010.

Divisional President Christian Rubach highlights that in our new report we have provided more information about world use and trade in steel scrap and that the Ferrous Division will strive to continue publishing these statistics on both a yearly and a quarterly basis.

Rolf Willeke, Statistics Advisor of the BIR Ferrous Division, summarises below the main news and findings contained in this report, which covers the five-year period between 2008 and 2012:

• The new report contains a total of 38 graphs and tables, seven more than its predecessor.

• Global steel scrap use as a raw material for steelmaking was unchanged at around 570m tonnes in 2012 although developments differed from country to country. It is noticeable that there was a scrap usage decrease in China, the EU-27, Japan and Russia, and an increase in the USA and Turkey. But we can assume that we also had a higher steel scrap usage in two other big steel-producing countries, i.e. India and the Republic of Korea.

• Owing to last year’s 1.2% increase in world crude steel output, the proportion of steel scrap used in crude steel production fell from 37.3% to 36.8%.

• Global annual scrap use in iron and steel foundries has amounted to between 56m and 74m tonnes in recent years.

• One of our new graphs shows that, worldwide, total external steel scrap trade reached 106.6m tonnes in 2012 (-1.9% compared to 2011), of which nearly 28% was attributable to inter-EU trade.

• In 2012, global trade in steel scrap was particularly influenced by the USA as the world’s leading exporter and by Turkey as its top importer.

• The increase in Turkey’s overseas purchases to 22.4m tonnes in 2012 enabled the country to reinforce its position as the world’s leading importer. It is similarly interesting to note substantially increased imports by the Republic of Korea and by India whereas China sharply reduced its imports.

• For the four biggest exporters, the USA, the EU-27, Japan and Russia, we have developed special charts to show the main flows of steel scrap in 2012:

  • The USA remained the world’s leading exporter of steel scrap with 21.4m tonnes in spite of a drop of around 12.2% over 2011.

  • Exports from the EU-27 increased around 2.1% to 19.2m tonnes.

  • Japan’s steel scrap exports jumped 57.9% to 8.5m tonnes.

  • Higher overseas shipments of steel scrap were also recorded by Russia (+7.6% to 4.3m tonnes).

• It is also noticeable that all the world’s leading steel scrap exporters are major net steel scrap exporters.

• Finally, market developments in 2012 highlighted the global importance of scrap as an ecologically beneficial raw material for steelworks and foundries, and at the same time underlined the need for a free world raw material market.

ends