In the first half of 2019, India overtook South Korea to become the world's second largest importer of scrap steel. According to data released by the Indian Ministry of Commerce, India’s scrap imports in the first half of the year increased by 35% to 3.87 million tons, of which the two major suppliers of the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom increased their scrap exports to India by 27% and 117% respectively. To 7.115 million tons and 530,100 tons. At the same time, US scrap supply to India fell 7% year-on-year to 301,300 tons.
In the first half of the year, South Korea’s scrap imports increased by 11% year-on-year to 3.63 million tons. Among them, scrap imports from Japan were flat year-on-year, at 22,000 tons. To offset the decline in Turkish scrap demand, US scrap suppliers turned their attention to South Korea, causing South Korea's scrap imports from the US to almost triple, reaching 689,900 tons. At the same time, South Korea’s scrap imports from Russia fell 20% year-on-year to 388,100 tons.
In the first half of the year, due to the economic slowdown and the sluggish steel exports, scrap imports fell by 16% year-on-year to 9.01 million tons. But Turkey remains the world's largest importer of scrap.
It is also known that India recently announced a draft scrap industry policy aimed at promoting scrap processing to accommodate the transformation of smelting processes into electric arc furnaces and induction furnace steelmaking.
