According to foreign media reports, US steelmakers Nucor, Cleveland Cliffs and BlueScope Steel Group’s North Star steel plant in the United States will invest more than $1 billion in scrap processing in 2021 to meet the growing domestic market demand in the United States.
It is reported that U.S. steel production will increase by nearly 20% in 2021, and U.S. steelmakers are actively seeking a stable supply of raw materials from scrapped cars, used oil pipes and manufacturing waste. On the basis of a cumulative expansion of 8 million tons of production capacity from 2020 to 2021, the U.S. steel industry is expected to expand the country’s annual flat steel production capacity by about 10 million tons by 2024.
It is understood that the steel produced by the scrap steel smelting process based on the electric arc furnace currently accounts for about 70% of the total steel production in the United States. The production process produces lower carbon dioxide emissions than smelting iron ore in blast furnaces heated by coal, but it also puts pressure on the U.S. scrap market. According to statistics from Pennsylvania-based consultancy Metal Strategies, scrap purchases by U.S. steelmakers rose 17% in October 2021 from a year earlier.
According to statistics from World Steel Dynamics (WSD), by the end of 2021, US scrap steel prices have risen by an average of 26% per ton compared with the same period in 2020.
“As steel mills continue to expand their EAF capacity, high-quality scrap resources will become scarcer,” said Philip Anglin, CEO of World Steel Dynamics.