According to a report issued by the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) for the first nine months of 2013, steel scrap usage for crude steel production in
China in the given period increased by 2.7 percent year on year to 64.3 million mt, although the gain was smaller than the eight percent upturn in Chinese crude steel output. BIR pointed out that, for
steelmaking,
China is using more domestically-supplied steel scrap and is reducing its imports.
In contrast, during January-September 2013, steel scrap consumption decreased by 6.9 percent to 67.2 million mt in the EU, it declined by 7.8 percent to 39.2 million mt in the
US, while
Turkey's scrap consumption fell by 7.3 percent to 22.9 million mt and Russia's scrap consumption was 13.98 million mt, down 10.4 percent, all year on year. However, despite the decline in its scrap consumption,
Turkey remained world's foremost steel scrap importer.
The BIR report indicates that in the given period
Turkey was the biggest scrap export market for both the
US and the EU, despite cutting its imports from both countries. In the first nine months,
Turkey's scrap imports from the
US declined by 18.8 percent to 4.12 million mt, while its scrap imports from the EU decreased by 10.4 percent to 7.56 million mt, both year on year.
Christian Rubach, president of the BIR Ferrous Division, said that the recycling industry will see a very slow recovery in 2014, as well as mergers and takeovers in both the steel and scrap industries, underlining that "mergers" and "takeovers" are "nicer words for overcapacity reductions through closures".