Russia has increased the export of ferrous scrap

According to updated statistics, Russia has significantly increased its export of scrap metal during the first three months of this year. Russia exported 1.115 million tonnes of scrap metal in the first quarter of 2015. Exports during the quarter were up 8.6 percent compared to exports in the same three-month period in 2014. Russian supplies of ferrous metal scrap abroad amounted to 1,027 tons in January-March last year.

Turkey was the largest export destination for Russian scrap metal over a three-month period. Russian exports to Turkey reached 487,000 tons, accounting for 43.68 percent of total Russian exports. The second country in terms of export supplies was Belarus. Russia exported 214,000 tons of scrap metal to Belarus during January-March 2015. Imports to Belarus accounted for 19.2 percent of total Russian exports. In third place was Spain, which accounted for almost 13.36 percent of total Russian exports. Exports to Spain reached 149,000 tons in the first three months of 2015.

Scrap imports for these three countries accounted for more than three quarters of Russian scrap exports in January-March this year. It is expected that Russian exports of ferrous scrap will reach 4.46 million tonnes throughout 2015.

However, the Russian government has included all grades of scrap metal in the list of goods for domestic consumption, which allows the government to restrict the export of these goods in "exceptional cases" and to stabilize prices in the domestic market. This is due to the fact that in some regions of Russia there is a shortage of scrap metal and this decision should support Russian producers. However, the Russian association Ruslom believes that a strong restriction on the export of scrap metal could lead to a drop in its collection, unstable prices and problems for steel producers in the European region, without ensuring a higher level of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap in Russia.