Metal Commodities and Recycling Report, Raleigh Scrap Metal Recycling, 2310 Garner Rd, Raleigh, NC, 27610, 919-828-5426

Raleigh Metal Recycling

Metal Commodities and Recycling Report

June 15, 2015

2310 Garner Road

Raleigh, NC 27610

This is the Commodities and Recycling report, brought to you by BENLEE the industry leader in roll off trailers and open top scrap trailers, as well as Raleigh and Goldsboro Metal Recycling, the leaders in North Carolina for Scrap Metal, Cardboard, Electronics and Junk Cars. 

Today is Monday, June 15, 2015.  My name is Greg Brown, President and CEO of the companies.

Overall while the global economy continues its slow steady growth, China which is a key driver for commodity pricing, continues to be very weak in scrap metal consumption.  This weakness along with the uneasiness with the financial debt problems in Greece, brought another problematic week for commodities.

Steel Production

 

 Steel production had a nice little uptick last week and is up for the past few weeks, but it is still well below last year.  

Oil Rig Count

One of the reasons for this low steel production in the U.S. is that the Oil rig count has now fallen for 27 weeks in a row, and is now at the lowest point in almost 5 years.  Related, imported finished steel remains a problem for U.S. steel mills, thereby hurting their production.  As has been reported, scrap yards have been experiencing multi year lows of incoming scrap coming into their yards, so prices rose a bit two weeks ago, which the chart shows. 

Steel Prices

Even with this ferrous increase, scrap flows remain very, very weak, as do profits.  Scrap yards that have mainly retail business remain under enormous profit pressure due to this low volume.  If the low growth continues in steel production, we could see another small increase in scrap steel prices due to the poor incoming scrap steel rate.  We know of one steel mill that stayed open this past Saturday in hopes of securing more incoming ferrous metal, due to the incoming scrap was so slow.

Copper Prices

Copper prices touched a three month low this morning and they remain near their 5 year low.  We see no catalyst that will cause an increase in copper prices anytime soon.  As we have discussed, China consumes 50% of the world’s copper and China is clearly not increasing their consumption.  The China slowdown has caused their government to drop interest rates multiple times in recent months to boost their economy and as we go to press, they may have dropped them again today.

Aluminum Prices

Aluminum dropped a bit this week and is close to the 5+ year low it hit about a year ago.  We remain in the belief that aluminum prices are near their bottom due to aluminum inventories are hitting new 5+ year lows.  

Aluminum Inventory

With energy prices down in the past year, aluminum recycling is less of a driver, so again, there is little reason to believe aluminum prices will be coming up soon.

Congratulations to our David Gibb for being named one of the CFOs of the year in the Raleigh area.  Well done in a very tough market and well done in teaming with Fifth Third Bank in supporting our operations in these tough markets.  And more congratulations to Upstate Shredding and Columbus Recycling as they were both named Scrap companies of the year in their category by AMM.

Prices for Aluminum and copper were unchanged last week in Raleigh, Goldsboro and Wilson.

Steel and Junk cars we up.  Please call us at 919-828-5426 in Raleigh, 919-731-5600 in Goldsboro and 252-243-3586 in Wilson for prices. 

With that we hope all have a Safe and Profitable week.   Tune in next week for the Commodity and Recycling report.