China scrap supply from ELV may rise in March
As the eight-day official holiday for Chinese New Year (CNY) in mid-February disrupted the operations among most car scrapping and dismantling companies in the country, domestic steel scrap supply from ELVs dropped significantly last month, Mysteel Global noted.
In February, a total of 27,500 units of ELVs were processed by the 85 scrapping enterprises nationwide under Mysteel's tracking, lower by 17.5% from the prior month, and by the end of last month, their ELV inventories dropped to 9,500 units, 10.2% fewer than in end-January.
Meanwhile, the total volume of steel scrap obtained from ELVs by the 33 processors under Mysteel's other survey also decreased to 17,400 tonnes in the past month, falling 10.7% from that in January.
As for this month, the processors and steel scrap dealers have gradually restarted their operations after the CNY holiday break, leading the supply of scrap recycled from ELVs to recover, market sources observed.
Moreover, the general anticipation for a traditional spring revival in domestic ferrous markets encouraged most steel scrap suppliers to ramp up their collection and processing earlier this month, Mysteel Global noted.
However, the actual weak steel demand soon dampened market sentiment and placed heavy pressure on prices of major ferrous commodities including steel scrap, as reported. The losses on sales then made scrap processors reluctant to further lift their operations, Mysteel Global learned.
By March 19, China's national steel scrap price index was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 2,789.4/tonne ($392.7/t), losing a large Yuan 250/t or 8.2% on month and hitting the lowest level since early November 2022.
Under such circumstances, the growth in the availability of steel scrap collected from ELVs may be moderate in March, according to Mysteel's estimate.
Written by Anthea Shi, shihui@mysteel.com
Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com
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