Summary of Scrap Trade Data for September 2019

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The scrap trade data published by various countries during the month of September this year suggests mixed trend.

The official trade statistics published by the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MoF) indicates that the country exported 635,000 tons of scrap in September 2019. The exports edged higher by 2.3% over the previous year. However, the exports were down by 8.2% from the prior month. The primary export destination was South Korea, which imported around 272,000 tons of scrap from Japan. The exports to that country dropped sharply by more than 10% year-on-year. In second place was Vietnam with imports of 248,000 tons.

The Turkish scrap imports totalled approximately 14 million tons during the initial nine-month period from January to September in 2019, said the recent statistics provided by the Turkish Iron and Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD). The imports from the EU region totalled 8.9 million tons, accounting for almost 63% of the total imports by Turkey. In second and third place were the U.S. and CIS countries, who supplied 2.7 million tons and 1.6 million tons of scrap respectively.

Meantime, the U.S. scrap exports recorded 12% year-on-year decline in scrap exports in September this year. The exports totalled nearly 1.12 million tons. The cumulative scrap exports by the country totalled around 11.7 million tons, down by 2% when compared with the first nine-month period in 2018. Also, U.S. scrap imports registered 6% decline in Jan-Sep ’19 to roughly 8.2 million tons. The monthly imports fell by 7% in September to total around 910,000 tons.