[TheForge] table weight

[Ries Niemi]

On Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 09:31 AM, Chris Kilpatrick wrote:

> Wow!  My scrap guy pay less than $100/ton.
>
> -Chris
>

Buying, or Selling?

I go to the same steel yard/scrap yard as Andy does, as it is the only 
one in the county- next one is at least an hour away- and they sell for 
30 cents a pound, scrap. They buy scrap steel for a lot less than that- 
something like a nickel a pound.
Both of these are commodity prices- they change all the time, based on 
world prices. The scrap guys go on the computer every day, and check 
world prices on steel, aluminum, stainless, copper, etc. They change 
the price accordingly, both buying and selling- the prices are written 
on a dry erase board in the office, and sometimes it changes every day.

One reason that its like that around here is we live about an hour and 
a half, north or south, from two of the biggest ports in America- 
Seattle and Vancouver. Tacoma, which is number 2 or 3 on the west 
coast, is another 45 minutes away. And all three of these ports are 
full of 5 to 10 ships a day bringing stuff from china, and ready to 
turn around and go back empty. So a container full of scrap metal lasts 
about 2 days on the ground around here before it gets loaded on a ship, 
and sent off to be made into Walmart barbecues and the like.
And real estate prices where we live are so high that nobody can afford 
to just sit on scrap iron. A half acre lot will go for $200 grand, if 
it is zoned right, so parking old cars and scrap metal on it is a 
losing proposition.
So if you want scrap metal here in washington, either you pay the 30 
cents a pound, or it goes on the truck today, the ship tomorrow, and is 
being melted down in china in a month.
You snooze, you lose.

Same thing with new steel- they dont sell it for the price they paid- 
they sell for the current wholesale price plus markup, and that can 
change any day. So the same piece of steel on their shelf can cost more 
next month.

ries