Indian mill scale exporters are eyeing alternative market like Japan and South Korea as China is likely to restrict mill scale imports by the year end.
A bulk vessel (MV Murou) of 12,000 MT mill scale has been reported at Kandla port, which is due for loading in first week of September. SteeIMint learnt from market sources that this cargo will be shipped to Japan. However deal price was not confirmed at the time of publishing this report.
Exporters are also approaching non conventional markets like South Korea and Oman.
China to ban imports of solid waste by year end On 18 Jul‘17, filing with the World Trade Organization (WTO), China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said that China will forbid import of 4 classes, 24 kinds of solid wastes, which includes mill scale as well.
The WTO filing references recent Chinese government efforts to clamp down on the quality of recovered material imports into the country. “we found that large amounts of dirty wastes or even hazardous wastes are mixed in the solid waste that can be used as raw materials. This polluted China’s environment seriously” the ministry wrote.
“To protect China’s environmental interests and people’s health, we urgently adjust the imported solid wastes list, and forbid the import of solid wastes that are highly polluted.”
Though adoption date has not been specified, but the filing indicates the ban will take effect by the end of 2017.
As per Indian market participants, mill scale inquiries from China continue to remain low. The situation for mill scale is that import ofthis material is also suspended due to emission problems of the end users of mill scale, which have to improved to meet the requirement before resume import.
India mill scale exports to China India exported 0.38 MnT mill scale in FY17. Out of which 58% of the material was shipped to China followed by Phillipines and others.
So far in FY18 (till Jul’17) Indian mill scale export summed to 0.09 MnT. China and Malaysia have remained major destinations for Indian mill scale exports so far in FY18.
Source Steel Mint powered by Keyvan Jafari Tehrani
