During the SteelOrbis Fall 2012 Conference & 67th IREPAS Meeting held in Munich on September 30-October 2, Dirk Sauter, CFO and member of the board of directors of German scrap processor Schrott Wetzel GmbH, said in his presentation that he remains optimistic as regards the prospects for scrap consumption, adding that steel scrap is the main girder for steel production in Europe and is increasingly significant compared to the use of primary raw materials. He said that the share of scrap used will continue to increase due to new blast furnace technology, while global steel production capacity using EAFs will increase. Mr. Sauter also remarked that there is increasing demand for scrap in Eastern Europe, Asia and Benelux countries.
The Schrott Wetzel official also underlined some challenges facing the scrap markets such as limited availability, trade restrictions, higher procurement and high logistic costs, high environmental pollution, increasing energy costs and high CO2 emissions. He added that customers' increasing demand for high quality and the careful monitoring of incoming goods and processing methods considering the availability of adequate scrap quantities has to be combined with economically sensible and reasonable price levels. Sauter stated that Schrott Wetzel's current investment program amounts to €35 million.