Market
September 30, 2024
Declines in imports, shifting scrap map and other takeaways from IIMA
Written by Stephen Miller
At the biannual meeting if the International Iron Metallics Association (IIMA) last week in Houston there were several presentations which directly relate to ferrous scrap, pig iron and HBI.
Robert Mazurak of IIMA presented a comprehensive report of world steel and raw materials using data from 2023. In summary, Mazurak related that both European and U.S. manufacturing activity declined in 2023. There was also a decline in the oil consumption markets. He attributed this to the increased use of electric vehicles in China.
In the ferrous raw materials sector, Mazurak presented data indicating a decline in worldwide imports for all three materials in the post-Covid period. The global scrap trade fell from 113.9 million metric tons in 2021 to 91.6 million tons in 2023. Merchant pig iron fell from 13.9 million to 10.8 million during the same period. HBI/DRI imports fared a little better, only falling from 7.9 million to 6.7 million metric tons in the same timeframe.
Other speakers noted shifting trends, such as the change in U.S. scrap consumption levels over the last two decades. Southern states, including Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi, have surpassed the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley regions. As the EAF flat-roll business has grown, most of the new mini-mills have been built in the South. If you couple this with declining integrated steel production in the northern tier, it has definitely changed the scrap map.
Looking ahead, ferrous markets need something to improve demand. But there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon. At least not yet.
Several other subjects were discussed at the meeting, including scrap optimization on the part of the steelmakers to reduce Cu content, scrap dealer and steel mill consolidation, and the flooding of Chinese steel into the world markets. RMU will analyze some of these issues in our future editions.
