China named world's largest consumer of scrap metal

During the meeting of BIR Iron and Steel on October 17 in Dubai, Rolf Willeke, BIR Statistics Adviser on Iron and Steel, shared statistics on the global trade in ferrous scrap for the first half of 2022.

Willeke said that in all key countries and regions, the use of scrap steel and the production of crude steel in the first six months of 2022 were lower than last year.

China's steel scrap consumption fell 13.8% in the first half of this year to 119.55 million tonnes, representing a more than halving of the country's crude steel production over the same period (-6.5% to 526 .9 million tons). With a 55.5% share of global crude steel production, China remained the world's largest consumer of scrap steel.

The second largest consumer of steel scrap in the world was the EU-27, which reduced consumption by 3.2% to an estimated 43.856 million tons against a decrease in crude steel production by 6.2% to 73.758 million tons. The US was the third largest consumer of steel scrap, with a 3% drop to 22.5Mt, compared to a 2.2% drop in steel production to 41.147Mt.

The use of scrap steel as a percentage of crude steel production was highest in Turkey at 87.1% and lowest in China at 22.7%, although China intends to increase its use of scrap.

In key countries and regions, the use of scrap steel decreased by 8.4% to 248.789 million tons in the first half of 2022, while the production of crude steel decreased by 6.1% to 777.235 million tons.

In the six months of 2022, Turkey's purchases of steel scrap from abroad decreased by 3% to 12,480 tons, although the country remained the leading importer of steel scrap in the world. Its main suppliers were the US with an increase of 25.7% to 2.232 million tons, the Netherlands with a decrease of 33.3% to 1.163 million tons and the UK with a decrease of 17.6% to 1.135 million tons.

The Republic of Korea was the world's second-largest importer of steel scrap in the first half of 2022, with an increase of 29.1% year-over-year to 2.722 million tons. Its main suppliers were Japan with an increase of 17.8% to 1.703 million tons, the United States with an increase of 48.3% to 0.399 million tons and Russia with an increase of 5.6% to 0.226 million tons.

The third largest importer of steel scrap in the first six months of 2022 was India, which increased its imports by 0.3% to 2.673 million tonnes. Its main suppliers were the United Arab Emirates with an increase of 3.5% to 0.711 million tons, the United States with a fall of 11.9% to 0.208 million tons and Singapore with a fall of 11.9% to 0.170 million tons.

In January-June, scrap imports to Thailand, Indonesia and Norway increased. In contrast, in the first half of 2022, the US, EU-27 and Taiwan reported lower imports.