The European Union has become the world's leading exporter of steel scrap for the final results of last year. The EU accounted for only 0.3 percent to increase the supply of scrap metal of up to 17 million tons. At that time, as supplies from the U.S. fell 17.1 percent to 15.3 million tons, displacing the United States in second place among the exporter of scrap metal last year.
This statistics was included in the recently issued report of the Bureau of international recycling (BIR). The report showed that the use of steel scrap in global steel production increased by 0.9 percent to 585 million tonnes. Overall, more than 97 million tons of steel scrap were traded on international markets. The strengthening of the US dollar made export prices United States less competitive abroad, which was the main reason for the fall in exports. Therefore, a large part of the steel scrap was consumed in the domestic market of the United States. Another reason for lower U.S. exports is the fall in iron ore prices, which makes the production of steel from ore is more attractive.
China and other countries, such as Turkey, reduced its import of steel scrap, relying on its own sources. Analysts also noted that the Chinese steel mills began to rely more on ore. According to the World Steel many countries reduced the import of ferrous scrap in 2014, including China decreased by 42.6%, South Korea 13.6%, Turkey 3.2 percent and Taiwan 4.1 percent. Of these, only Turkey fell steel production in 2014, but much less than the reduction in imports of scrap. All four countries have organised a scrap metal collection at home and become less dependent on imports, at least for now.
However, the three countries of the top 10 importers of ferrous scrap increased purchases, among them: India, United States and Thailand, the import increased by 44 percent. From 2010 to 2013, in accordance with BIR, Turkey was the largest importer of steel scrap, and the US is the largest exporter. But last year everything changed when the dollar strengthened. For 2014, the customers from Turkey and other countries started to look towards the EU.