By Anil Mathews
August 14, 2017 03:30:27 AM
NEW DELHI (Scrap Monster): Containerized scrap shipments to India gained momentum in May this year, backed by improved steel mill demand and rising market optimism. The buying activity, which has been in a muted state for several weeks in a row, reported considerable improvement during the month.
The most recent trade statistics released by the Indian Directorate General of Commerce Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) under the Ministry of Commerce indicates marginal recovery in ferrous scrap imports by the country during the month of May this year. This is when compared with the previous year. Year-on-year, the imports declined sharply by over 29%.
The ferrous scrap imports totaled 434,000 tons in May this year. This is the second consecutive month that the scrap imports have recorded month-on-month jump. When matched with April 2017, the imports were up marginally by 3.3%. It must be noted that the imports had totaled 420,000 tons in April, registering the first month-on-month rise in 2017. Upon comparison with imports during the same month a year before, the May ’17 imports were down sharply by 29.1%. The country’s imports had totaled 612,000 tons during May last year.
The largest supplier of ferrous scrap to India was the UAE. The imports from the UAE totaled 64,000 tons, accounting for nearly 15% of the total scrap imports by India during the month. Over the previous year, the imports from the UAE have surged higher by 12.3%. India’s ferrous scrap imports from the UAE had totaled 387,000 tons during May 2016.
The cumulative imports of ferrous scrap by India during the initial five-month period of the year totaled 2.145 million tons. When compared with the corresponding five-month period in 2016, the imports were down significantly by nearly one-third. The imports had totaled 3.187 million tons during Jan-May ’16.
India’s scrap imports had totaled 419,789 tons in April, significantly higher when matched with the imports of 342,572 tons in March.
The largest exporter of scrap to India during April this year was the UAE. The imports from the UAE totaled 77,620 tons, rising significantly by nearly 32% over the imports of 58,678 tons in March. However, the imports from the UAE dropped sharply by 14% over the same month a year before. In second place was the UK. The imports from the UK totaled 49,018 tons during the month, rising considerably from imports of 32,402 tons in March 2017. The USA exported 32,965 tons of scrap to the country, thereby emerging as the third largest supplier. The imports from the US recorded sharp decline when compared with 50,418 tons in March this year.
