Current Scrap Metal Prices

Russian scrap market recovers – There was a slight recovery in the Russian scrap market in February.

The procurement plan has not been completed. In January, almost all of the steel mills planned to increase their procurements in February.

Owing to insufficient resources and low steel inventories, steel mills will continue to raise scrap purchase prices. Ukraine also faces a shortage in the supply of scrap steel, so steel mills have to raise purchase price to obtain resources.

Russia to place limits on scrap exports – Russia has decreed that the scrap export in its east gulf will basically be limited; this will have a serious impact on the Korean electric steel mills which depend on Russian scrap.

The Russian government said in December that no area is allowed to export scrap except for the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Kamchatka peninsula. This means that Russian scrap can only be exported via Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

In 2002, the Russian custom committee also decreed limits to the exporting of scrap at its 8 ports because of shortages in the domestic market.