Assofermet/SteelOrbis Event:Turkey to Keep World's Top Scrap Importer

During the afternoon session of the 1st Assofermet Day & SteelOrbis Conference, held on Friday, November 15 in Brescia in northern Italy, Burak Odaba, director of SteelOrbis, provided a snapshot of the current state of the Turkish steel industry, with special focus on Turkish trade with EU countries.Turkey ranks ninth among the biggest steel producing countries in the world, with 25,819 million mt produced in January-September this year. 74 percent of Turkish crude steel production is via electric arc furnaces, with 26 percent produced by blast furnaces. In 2012, Turkey was the world’s biggest importer of steel scrap. The total global international scrap trade volume was 106.6 million metric tons in 2012, while total global scrap consumption amounted to 570 million metric tons. In 2012, most scrap imported by Turkey originated in Europe (50%) and the US (32%), followed by the Black Sea region (9%) and the Mediterranean region (9%). SteelOrbis director Burak Odaba forecast that Turkey will continue to be the world’s biggest importer of scrap, ready to seek scrap from all regions of the world. At the same time, she said it is very difficult to forecast China’s situation based on current available data, though it is estimated that China will be a net scrap exporter by circa 2020. Black sea region scrap exports are likely to decrease further and so European and US supplies are likely to increase in importance.Ms Odaba then focused on Turkish rebar exports, which in the first nine months of 2013 were supplied to Iraq (18% of the total), the UAE (15%), the US (7%) and other countries (39%). In the same period, Turkey’s rebar exports to EU countries amounted to over 140,000 metric tons. As regards wire rod, Turkish exports in the January-September period of 2013 went to Libya (13% of the total), Israel (13%), Iraq (6%), Singapore (6%), the US (6%), Italy (5 %) and other countries (51%).Moving on to Turkish imports, Ms Odaba pointed out that in 2012 Turkey purchased 53 percent of its hot rolled coil (HRC) imports from EU countries and 47 percent from the rest of the world. In the first nine months of 2013, the EU supplied 48 percent of Turkey’s total HRC imports. Meanwhile, HRC exports from Turkey to the EU in 2012 amounted to over 211,000 mt, while the volume surged to more than 243,000 mt in the first nine months of 2013. Italy accounted for a major share of these export volumes, both in 2012 (receiving 41% of the total) and in the first nine months of 2013 ( with 54%), mainly due to the difficulties faced by Italian Taranto-based flat steel producer Ilva, as previously reported by SteelOrbis.