Consumption of ferrous scrap in the United Kingdom will continue to increase over the coming years amid an expansion in the UK operations of international metals group Liberty House, Fastmarkets MB's research team believes.
UK scrap demand in 2018 is on course to rise for the first time in four years after Liberty restarted a second electric arc furnace (EAF) at its site in Rotherham, northern England, in February 2018. Cumulative UK domestic scrap demand rose by 8.7% year on year for the first 10 months of 2018 to 1.78 million tonnes, we estimate, putting the country on course to record its first full-year increase since 2014. UK EAF output, driven by Liberty's expansion, rose 9.1% over the 10-month period to 1.37 million tonnes. This increase in local scrap consumption reduced the UK's scrap exports as a proportion of total...