GACC: China's stainless scrap imports plunge 70% YoY in 2024

In December alone, imports of stainless scrap amounted to 9,747 tonnes, reflecting a 51.74% plunge from the same month in 2023 despite a 47.46% month-on-month gain, the GACC data showed.

The sharp contraction in full-year imports resulted largely from the significant reduction in shipments from Japan, China's primary supplier of stainless scrap. Imports of Japanese stainless scrap plummeted by 63.1% last year to total just 59,241 tonnes, highlighting the decrease in demand for imported scrap from Chinese stainless steel producers.

Top five stainless steel scrap suppliers in 2024:

Industry sources linked the drop in China's scrap imports to the increasing availability of much cheaper domestic scrap. As of January 2, Mysteel's assessment of the price of 304-grade stainless steel scrap in Wenzhou, East China, stood at Yuan 9,300/tonne ($1,277.3/ton), while European stainless steel scrap prices tracked by Mysteel were at $1,350/ton on the same day.

"With additional costs such as freight, imported scrap has become far less competitive this year," an insider noted.

Moreover, the lower cost of imported nickel pig iron has seen NPI emerge as an attractive alternative to stainless steel scrap for domestic producers. Mysteel's survey revealed that the profit margin for producers using imported high-grade NPI to manufacture 304-grade stainless cold-rolled coil was 1.12% as of January 21, up from just 0.22% a month earlier.

Written by Adele Pan, panqinjie@mysteel.com      

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com