[TheForge] Metal Prices!

[John Allen]

US steel is supposedly only to contain a maximum of 25% wrap. China is more
like 80%. I know when I worked in a large steel supply house, the made in
China steel ALWAYS cracked or even broke when we bent it. The made in
America stuff was always nice stuff to work with.

The steel yard sent all of their scrap to a large scrap yard, the biggest
one in NJ and then it got loaded on ship bound for china.

On Jun 18, 2010 11:02 PM, "ries" <ries at riesniemi.com> wrote:

On Jun 18, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Jerry Smith wrote:


Yes I have, but the local scrap yard guys are sell...
Jerry- you sure about that?
The USA, as a whole, makes about half the steel we make from scrap.
Depends on the economy, of course, how much steel we make here in the
USA- before a couple of years ago, when things were booming, we were
making a bit over 100 million tons a year of steel domestically.
Last I heard, these days its more like 80 million tons.
Of those 80 million tons, about half, thats FORTY MILLION TONS of
steel is made right here in the USA from scrap steel.

Nucor likes to keep on hand, at each of its 20 or so mini-mills, about
a million tons of scrap at any given time.

What this means is that our export of scrap to China is a lot less
than the "common wisdom" thinks it is.
In 2009, the best figures I can find indicate we sold about 6 million
tons of scrap to China, the most ever.

So- domestic use of scrap to make new steel-
40 million tons.
export of scrap to China-
6 million tons.

4 times out of 5, your scrap is going to US mills instead of China...

ries






You guys seeing that sort of [extreme] price increases?



Wes (aka William the Tinker)




---...

Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/




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