Posted on 28 Dec 2020
China’s Metallurgical Information and Standardization Institute (CMISI) that has participated in the formulation of the country’s new steel scrap standards, shared some explanation notes on some terms in the documentation on December 21, though the full and final copy of the guidelines is nowhere to be found yet.
According to CMISI, the re-defined steel scrap under the name “recycling iron-steel materials” in the standards will be able to directly feed into furnaces for steelmaking without further processing, providing the ferrous market with a glimpse of the new standards.
The institute disclosed the categorization of application, classification, technical specifications, sampling, quality checks of such materials, elaborating that depending on the physical and chemical components, the recycling iron-steel materials will be classified into seven categories including heavy, medium, small and shredded scrap.
Besides, the new standards raise the bars on impurities in the scrap to less than 1% in principle from the less than 3% at present, and some categories are even harsher by setting the caps at below 0.3%, for example, the steel scrap during steelmaking processing, Mysteel Global noted.
The implementation of the new steel scrap standards is confirmed to be on January 1 2021, but so far, none of the market sources have got hold of a full copy yet, though few expected any substantial impact in the early days either.
“From all the related information we have gathered so far, the new standards seem not as stringent as we have expected, despite that it has been stricter on quality, weight and purity,” a Japanese steel trader said.
For example, “we heard that all the impurities in all categories should be less than 0.3%,” he added, though he is still looking forward to China’s resumption of free steel scrap imports once the standards take effect.
An official from a large-sized steel mill in North China’s Hebei province also believed that the new standards to be of little impact on their steel scrap consumption or cost.
“We have all along had rather high requirements the scrap we feed into our furnaces, so the new requirements will not change our status quo or add our production costs,” he commented.
Besides, with the official documentation missing, it is hard for the market to assess the situation or impact explicitly, a Beijing-based market analyst commented.
“CMISI’s explanation is helpful and may be of reference, but the key here is still the official release, so I will treat all these as just market views, and will just wait patiently for the final copy to be published,” he said.
Over January-October, China’s steel scrap imports totalled 24,450 tonnes, down around 86.7% on year, mainly due to China’s tightening the control over such imports.
Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com
Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
Source:Mysteel Global
