Amid rising steel capacities, Pakistan has increased its scrap buying activities in CY17. According to customs data maintained with SteelMint, a bulk vessel named ‘MV Daiwan Fortune’ loaded with 27,500 MT of ferrous Scrap from USA is expected to arrive at Pakistan’s Karachi Port today (i.e. on 27th Jun’17).
As per trade sources report, in May’17 3-4 bulk scrap import vessels were booked. The ‘MV Daiwan Fortune’ is anticipated to be one of them and others too are expected to reach Pakistan shortly.
Pakistan has recently imposed Anti-dumping on imports of Chinese Billets. Industry participants believe that, with the imposed anti-dumping duty, domestic steel prices and production of billet to surge further locally. This will likely to increase the scrap consumption further making the scrap imports viable.
On an average the country imports about 3.0 MnT scrap annually, although there is no official data available with us regarding it.
Pakistan’s crude steel production on the rise
Pakistan has reported a sharp rise in steel production with 3.6 MnT in CY16 and it is expected to rise further in CY17. The steel industry in Pakistan has fragmented which includes 600 small and big players with most of them are emerging with induction furnaces.
Major steel makers namely Agha Steel, Amreli Steel, International Steel, Mughal Steel and Aisha Steel have either increased their production and sales or are expanding their capacities.
Thus, with increased crude steel production in pipeline, Pakistan is likely to become a notable scrap importer in world trade.
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