News Room - Steel Industry

Posted on 09 Feb 2024

India may overtake Turkey as global scrap importer: conference

Because it is on a path to increase steel production capacities by 2030, India will hunger for more scrap supply as a raw material, says MTS Group senior manager Pratik Shah.

“The question is, will India pass Turkey and became the leader of global scrap imports soon,” he noted during Kallanish’s Steel Scrap 2024 conference in Istanbul at Thursday. “I think there is a very good chance that the Indian steel sector will reach [a] new leading position in scrap intake in the near future.”

“Everybody is talking about scrap these days and that it is the new gold,” noted Metkim’s Metal general director Osman Tureyyen. “It is probably not going to be the new gold, but it is clear that India and China are going to be the leaders of steel production. However, Turkey will be also in a similar leading position in the industry in the next five to ten years, that is clear. The reason for that is that it has made big investments in the sector and in the last three years, despite global challenges, has maintained one of the large steel producers globally.”

Turkish mills are facing different problems than India. For example, many Turkish mills are facing exports problems due to different quotas and restrictions in Europe and the US, he adds.

“Another problem is the quality of ferrous scrap,” Tureyyen observes. “Earlier, Turkey used all grades of scrap, but in the past ten years its steel industry had changed to a different structure and some Turkish steel mills have gone from the output of long products to flat ones. This requires high-grade scrap, like shredded one, with good quality and the demand for such raw materials is increasing.”

There are also expectations that the EU will impose future restrictions for scrap exports, but this will probably not affect all sorts, because Europe produces more scrap than it can use and the rest of this material needs to be shipped abroad, he added.

Source:Kallanish