China steel scrap consumption rises 15% YoY in H1

SHANGHAI, Aug 20 (SMM) – China consumed 101.13 million mt of ferrous scrap in the first six months of 2019, up 15.28% from the same period last year, showed data from China's Association of Metalscrap Utilization (CAMU).

During the same period, China’s output of pig iron rose 8.4% to 404.21 million mt, while output of crude steel expanded 9.01% to 492.17 million mt.

It took 205.5 kg of steel scrap to produce 1 mt of steel, up 6.9 kg/mt year on year, while scrap rate climbed 11.1 percentage points to 20.1%.

Electric arc furnace (EAF) production accounted for 9.8% of overall steel output, down 0.2 percentage point from the same period last year.

China’s imports of steel scrap declined 81.9% year on year to 160,000 mt in the first half of the year, while exports shrank 99.3% to 2,267 mt, showed data from China Customs.