Steel still sucks! But hopefully looking a little better soon... - Page 3

eesakiwi- Are you sure that your light steel scrap is only worth $6.50 U.S. per metric ton??? That equates to only about .003 a U.S. penny a pound (6.50/2200 pounds). That just seems ....strange given even the worse U.S. price I've heard about is a little above a penny a pound. What would make NZ light scrap steel be so worthless???

Four months ago (4/11) I was at my old steel buyer, quoted a price of $15 a ton ($.0075 Lb.), I chose to not sell and find new yard.

ok, I miscalculated, it should be about a third of a U.S. penny. But, still a third of our crappiest price?? No one must re-melt the stuff on New Zealand and China, if they were buying, probably doesn't want to deal with smaller, more infrequent shiploads from NZ than say the States with such a larger population. Doesn't Japan and anyone else in SE Asia besides China buy any scrap steel??

Up 10 to 20 next month is what I am hearing

Gee fellas, I thought we were doing it tough down here in Oz. We're getting $40-$60/Tonne for shred and slightly better for heavy. Don't know when we will see better prices with the price of Iron Ore dropping almost daily. I'm just concentrating on non-ferrous and any steel just gets put into a pile until better days. I'm lucky to be living on acreage out in the bush, so I've got plenty of room.

I saw an interesting talk about the iron ore trade between Aus and China. I've added the scrapping/scrap trade aspect. So here's goes not a complete circle but maybe a bit of a boomerang (couldn't resist my friend): 1) iron ore is mined in western Aus and shipped to China where it is made into steel. 2) In China, its made into a consumer product that is shipped to the U.S. 3) There it is used and eventually is scrapped. 4) The steel scrap heads to a U.S. port and shipped back to China. 5) Repeat steps 2 through 4. Until recently...

About two weeks ago and on a different thread. I said I was ready to sell another ton of light steel. Well It didn't get sold until this last Friday (8/28), couldn't find the other thread so wll post price on this one. I sold 2,368 pounds for $100 a ton or about $0.05 a pound, not all that good, but a little better than last two trips that paid $0.045 a pound.

The bad news, this yard said they bought circuit boards, so before I loaded anything I called and asked for a price quote. I asked for price on "their price on low grade boards of the lowest quality?". Lady said they would have to see them, but about $.25 a pound. I have over 500 pounds, but only loaded about 200 pounds. The price seemed too good to be true, my last buyer bought this grade for only $.03 a pound. I took them to scale only to be told, they don't buy "brown boards", I was a little pissed! I asked to see the manager (a person I have dealt with for awhile, but he worked for another yard, then). I told him about the phone conversation, he apologized about that, would get lady on phone corrected, but they don't buy brown boards period. Maybe my fault, I described them as "low grade boards of the lowest quality" and should have just said "brown boards", live and learn. Manager did call me on Tuesday morning and gave me a phone number of a circuit board buyer, haven't called yet, but will soon.

Yep, NZ$10 a Ton for lightgauge. Last time I went to the scrapyard it was almost empty of Ferrous. Its never been that empty before.

I will check again in a few days. I have 30 -40Kg of Copper from microwave transformers to scrap down and sell.

I have always used this site to give me a idea of what the current prices are. Scrap Metal Price, Pricelist - Metalcorp NZ

Its a north island scrapyard, I'm in the lower South Island. But their prices have been better than mine by a bit. Its suprising to find they say they are buying lightgauge at NZ$100. Weird. I will find out why next time I am there.
NZ$50 a ton for car bodys though, I expect thats when they are 'clean' too.
I don't think there is a shredding plant in the South island. There is one in the north island, owned by Sims.
Sims metal has been in NZ for decades.
A quick look on wiki tells me Sims started in Austraila near 100 years ago and got into NZ bigtime during the early 90's. Since then its gone worldwide.
It also says they buy escrap, not at my scrapyard though. More stuff to find out.

NZ exports coal to China for the steel business, and a few other places. We have just had one mine close down. It was open for over 100 yers too.
I get the impression most of our scrap goes to the middle east. Gets turned into reinforcing bar and such.

Well i got a call today tomorrow scrap is going down$10 per ton

We are down to $80/ton here. It just dropped $20

We dropped $10

$50 / ton today at the local feeder yard in Iowa

Well, I probably knew it was going to happen after seeing some recent postingd of further declines in steel but still sort of slap in the face yesterday morning with light steel here dropping to the infamous penny a pound!! With my little car load, I got enough to buy a 20 oz. pop at a c-store. Can't wait until my storage unit lease is up at the end of October and maybe the last 4 Monday curbcos will yield something decent to resell or part out. Another electric scooter or Hoover wet vac will make me much more happy in October than a couple of sets of cut up light gauge swing sets...

$2.00 for a hundred pounds light iron...thats low

Still at 90/Ton for sheet iron and 140/Ton for HMS Prepared today. South side of Chicago. But Oct. 1st is coming.......