China issues additional scrap import quotas

The Bureau of International Recycling, Brussels, has alerted its members that China’s Solid Waste & Chemicals Management Centre of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has published the third batch of scrap import quotas for 2020. The list, in Chinese, is available here.

An additional 4,620 metric tons of copper scrap, 1,440 metric tons of aluminum scrap, 2,670 metric tons of steel scrap and 22,750 metric tons of paper scrap have been permitted to enter China in the first quarter of the year, according to China’s Solid Waste & Chemicals Management Centre.

China-based Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) says it does not expect the total quotas for aluminum scrap in the first quarter to exceed 300,000 metric tons. With this third batch of quotas, 284,449 metric tons of the metal have been permitted for import. SMM says its data showed that China imported 332,000 metric tons of aluminum scrap in the first quarter of 2019.

SMM says China may experience a shortage of aluminum scrap in the second quarter of this year as authorities could “sharply” scale back their issuing of import quotas. However, SMM writes, “China’s aluminium scrap market is expected to be well-supplied in February, prompting scrap prices to follow refined metal lower, as the scrap users—secondary aluminium producers—are delaying their resumption of operations amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.”

SMM says secondary aluminum producers in China will be delayed in restarting their operations after the Lunar New Year by seven to 10 days more because of the illness, adding that those in the Hubei and Zhejiang may be further delayed in restarting given that the areas have been hardest hit by the outbreak.

A total of 301,041 metric tons of copper scrap and 4,950 metric tons of ferrous scrap have been approved for import into China in the first quarter of this year as of Feb. 6.

Starting July 1, high-purity imports of aluminum, copper and brass scrap will no longer be subject to quotas.