According to the World Steel Association, global crude steel production in 2021 was 1.952 billion tons, up 3.8 percent from the previous year. Among them, oxygen converter steel output was basically flat at 1.381 billion tons, while electric furnace steel output rose 14.4% to 563 million tons. According to statistics, China’s crude steel production in 2021 decreased by 3% year-on-year to 1.033 billion tons; In contrast, crude steel production in the 27 EU countries rose 15.4% to 152.575 million tons; Japan’s crude steel production rose 15.8% year on year to 85.791 million tons; Crude steel production in the United States increased 18% year on year to 85.791 million tons, and crude steel production in Russia increased 5% year on year to 76.894 million tons. South Korea’s crude steel production rose 5% year on year to 70.418 million tons; Crude steel production in Turkey increased 12.7% year on year to 40.36 million tons. Canadian production rose 18.1% year on year to 12.976 million tons.

01 Scrap consumption

According to the Statistics of the International Bureau of Recycling, In 2021, China’s scrap consumption decreased by 2.8% year-on-year to 226.21 million tons, and China is still the world’s largest scrap consumer. The ratio of China’s scrap consumption to crude steel production increased by 1.2 percentage points to 21.9% from the previous year.

In 2021, scrap steel consumption in 27 EU countries will increase by 16.7% year-on-year to 878.53 million tons, and crude steel production in the opposite area will increase by 15.4%, and the ratio of scrap steel consumption to crude steel production in EU will rise to 57.6%. In the United States, scrap consumption increased 18.3% year on year to 59.4 million tons, and the ratio of scrap consumption to crude steel production increased to 69.2%, while crude steel production increased 18% year on year. Turkey’s scrap steel consumption increased 15.7 percent year-on-year to 34.813 million tons, while crude steel production increased 12.7 percent, increasing the ratio of scrap steel consumption to crude steel production to 86.1 percent. In 2021, scrap consumption in Japan increased by 19% year-on-year to 34.727 million tons, while crude steel production decreased by 15.8% year-on-year, and the proportion of scrap used in crude steel production rose to 40.5%. Russian scrap consumption increased 7% yoy to 32.138 million tons, while crude steel production increased 5% yoy and the ratio of scrap consumption to crude steel production increased to 41.8%. South Korea’s scrap consumption fell 9.5 percent year-on-year to 28.296 million tons, while crude steel production increased only 5 percent and the ratio of scrap consumption to crude steel production increased to 40.1 percent.

In 2021, the consumption of scrap steel in the seven major countries and regions totaled 503 million tons, up 8 percent year-on-year.

Import status of scrap steel

Turkey is the world’s largest importer of scrap steel. In 2021, Turkey’s overseas procurement of scrap steel increased by 11.4 percent year-on-year to 24.992 million tons. Imports from the United States fell 13.7 percent year on year to 3.768 million tons, imports from the Netherlands rose 1.9 percent year on year to 3.214 million tons, imports from the United Kingdom rose 1.4 percent to 2.337 million tons, and imports from Russia fell 13.6 percent to 2.031 million tons.
In 2021, scrap imports in the 27 EU countries increased by 31.1% year on year to 5.367 million tons, with the main suppliers in the region being the United Kingdom (up 26.8% year on year to 1.633 million tons), Switzerland (up 1.9% year on year to 796,000 tons) and the United States (up 107.1% year on year to 551,000 tons). The United States remained the world’s third largest scrap importer in 2021, with scrap imports rising 17.1% year on year to 5.262 million tons. Imports from Canada rose 18.2 percent year on year to 3.757 million tons, imports from Mexico rose 12.9 percent year on year to 562,000 tons and imports from the United Kingdom rose 92.5 percent year on year to 308,000 tons. South Korea’s imports of scrap steel rose 8.9 percent year-on-year to 4.789 million tons, Thailand’s imports rose 18 percent year-on-year to 1.653 million tons, Malaysia’s imports rose 9.8 percent year-on-year to 1.533 million tons and Indonesia’s imports of scrap steel rose 3 percent year-on-year to 1.462 million tons. Imports of scrap steel to India were 5.133 million tonnes, down 4.6% year-on-year. Pakistan’s imports fell 8.4 percent year-on-year to 4.156 million tonnes.
03 Scrap export status
In 2021, global exports of scrap steel (including intra-EU27 trade) reached 109.6 million tons, up 9.7% year on year. The EU27 remained the world’s largest scrap export region, with scrap exports increasing by 11.5% year-on-year to 19.466m tonnes in 2021. The main buyer was Turkey, to which exports were 13.110m tonnes, up 11.3% year-on-year. The 27-nation BLOC increased exports to Egypt to 1.817 million tons, up 68.4 percent year on year, to Switzerland up 16.4 percent to 56.1 percent, and to Moldova up 37.8 percent to 34.6 million tons. However, exports to Pakistan fell 13.1 percent year-on-year to 804,000 tonnes, while exports to the US fell 3.8 percent year-on-year to 60.4 million tonnes and exports to India fell 22.4 percent year-on-year to 535,000 tonnes. The 27-nation EU exported the most to the Netherlands at 4.687 million tons, up 17 percent year on year.
In 2021, exports of scrap steel within the 27 EU countries totaled 29.328 million tons, up 14.5% year on year. In 2021, us scrap exports rose 6.1% year on year to 17.906 million tons. Exports from the US to Mexico rose 51.4 percent year-on-year to 3.142 million tons, while exports to Vietnam rose 44.9 percent to 1.435 million tons. However, exports to Turkey fell 14 percent year-on-year to 3.466 million tonnes, exports to Malaysia fell 8.2 percent year-on-year to 1.449 million tonnes, exports to China’s Taiwan fell 10.8 percent year-on-year to 1.423 million tonnes, and exports to Bangladesh fell 0.9 percent year-on-year to 1.356 million tonnes. Exports to Canada fell 7.3 per cent year on year to 844,000 tonnes. In 2021, the UK’s scrap exports rose 21.4 percent year-on-year to 8.287 million tons, Canada’s grew 7.8 percent year-on-year to 4.863 million tons, Australia’s grew 6.9 percent year-on-year to 2.224 million tons, and Singapore’s rose 35.4 percent year-on-year to 685,000 tons, While Japan’s scrap exports fell 22.1 percent year on year to 7.301 million tons, Russia’s scrap exports fell 12.4 percent year on year to 4.140 million tons.

Most of the world’s major scrap exporters are major net exporters of scrap, with net exports of 14.1 million tonnes from the eu27 and 12.6 million tonnes from the US in 2021.