Asia still sleeps as Turks return to US scrap market
Nov 12, 2008 | 11:36 AM
| Bryan Berry
Turkey is "creeping back" into the market for exported U.S. scrap, but Asia remains "terribly weak," Alter Goldstein, Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc.'s vice president of export sales, said at the morning session of AMM's 2nd Annual Scrap Conference.
Turkish mills were paying U.S. scrap companies as much as $755 per ton c.i.f. earlier in the year—until they pulled out of the U.S. market. However, in early October the Turks again started buying U.S. scrap in small quantities, but at much lower prices of about $140 per ton, although there was a spot buy of heavy melt at $275 per ton in early November.
"There's a feeling that the scrap market in Turkey can go no lower," Goldstein said. "The Turkish mills tend to overbuy. The market goes up because of their overbuying, and then they pull out."
In the first five months of this year, Turkish mills bought an "incredible amount of scrap—almost double what they normally buy," he said.....
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