Some steel billet producers in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) withdrew from the market early this week following a sharp rise in import scrap prices in Turkey.
Turkish deep-sea scrap import prices have gone up strongly amid reduced availability of the material, caused by the measures being taken to try to control the Covid-19 pandemic.
European Metal Recycling (EMR) shut down part of its operations in the UK at the end of March, due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many scrap suppliers in the UK were reducing production, with almost all scrap processing operations shuttered in Scotland and many of those in England. EMR and domestic rival Sims Metal Management have already stopped collections of ferrous scrap from third parties at their British operations.
The pandemic...