Export demand off the U.S. East Coast is rising; Turkey’s return and Europe’s drought are factors.
Although domestic mill buyers in the United States refused to bid more for ferrous scrap in early August or throughout July, the United States ferrous scrap market has shown a slight rebound at East Coast export yards.
Scrap pricing tracked by Davis Index showed a price rebound on the Atlantic Coast beginning to emerge in July. Of the five Davis Index prices published by Recycling Today for its monthly ferrous market update, the only one that rose in July was for bulk export shipments from New York.
The July average for bulk mixed No. 1 and No. 2 heavy melting steel (HMS) cargoes purchased in New York rose by 1.6 percent in July compared with June. This modest increase was largely spurred by Indian buyers, traders and recyclers say.
After few cargoes were sold from the U.S. to Turkey in July, as August began, many Turkish buyers realized they had “stayed out of the buying arena for far too long, so they need to buy,” one recycler says.
Turkey’s economic and geopolitical circumstances could have dictated that mill buyers look at places other than the U.S. for scrap (including Russia), but alternative markets may simply not have been suitable.
In Europe, a lengthy vacation season and rising truck fuel costs have combined to reduce volumes across the scale in July and August.
Another potential problem in Europe has been emerging in media reports about shipping conditions on the continent. Aug. 8, Greece-based Hellenic Shipping News, regarding conditions in Germany, reports, “Weeks of baking temperatures and scant rainfall this summer have drained the water levels of the Rhine, the country’s commercial artery, causing delays to shipping and pushing freight costs up more than five-fold.”
The shipping publication offers an example pertaining to iron ore that can be just as applicable to ferrous scrap. “Barges like the Servia, a 135-meter (148 yards) vessel carrying iron ore from the port of Rotterdam to German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp’s plant in Duisburg, can only load 30 percent to 40 percent of its capacity or risk running aground,” according to the publication.
It is a circumstance that will make shipping scrap to export terminals in northern Europe increasingly cost-ineffective. With scrap supply choked off in Europe, mill buyers in Turkey and several other nations who may—all things being equal—prefer European scrap may for the time being find themselves scrambling to source scrap from North America.
As of Aug. 11, Davis Index reports a rise in prices for container shipments of HMS and plate and structural (P&S) scrap off the East Coast. “The weekly New York containerized Davis Indexes reversed the slight losses from last week with firm gains as HMS 1&2 increased by $14 per metric ton [and] P&S five-foot climbed by $16 per metric ton.”
Price gains for the same grades were not as noticeable on the Pacific Coast, says the information service, with prices at Los Angeles and San Francisco container export yards rising by only $3 or $4 per metric ton.
Lobbying efforts included extended producer responsibility, the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act and the PFAS Action Act of 2021.
The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, has released its 2022 second-quarter LD-2 lobbying disclosure report per the organization’s transparency initiative. The association also filed its contribution disclosure form and its report to the Federal Election Commission.
“It’s through our lobbying that we can be an effective advocate for the waste and recycling industry,” says NWRA President and CEO Darrell Smith. “It is important to us that we are transparent about our advocacy efforts. While we file our lobbying reports with the clerk of the House of Representatives and these are publicly available, NWRA goes a step further by posting these reports to our website.”
Lobbying items for this quarter included:
Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act of 2022 -- improve domestic recycling collection in underserved and rural areas;
Recycling and Composting Accountability Act -- improve recycling and composting data collection;
extended producer responsibility -- focus on increasing demand for recyclable materials to allow market forces to incentivize recycling;
RECOVER Act -- tax credits for increasing domestic recycling infrastructure;
Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act -- national container deposit;
Cultivating Organic Matter through Promotion of Sustainable Techniques Act -- creating new United States Department of Agriculture grant and loan programs as well as composting infrastructure projects; and,
PFAS Action Act of 2021 -- offers a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability shield to airports that release per-and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances into their environment through their use of fire fighting foam. As receivers of PFAS, Congress should extend the same CERCLA liability protection to municipal solid waste landfills.
NWRA says it continues to engage Congress on issues important to the industry. Read the full expense report here.
With 330,000 job openings in construction at the end of June, AGC officials say labor shortages continue to plague the industry.
Construction firms added 32,000 jobs in July as the sector’s unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent; however, a close to record level of unfilled construction positions has left industry analysts concerned.
“Construction firms are doing their best to add new workers to keep pace with strong demand for construction,” says Stephen E. Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). “Despite the month's big gains, the industry's job gains would have been even higher if there were more people available to hire.”
Total construction employment moved up to 7,706,000 in July as both residential and nonresidential construction firms added jobs for the month. Nonresidential firms added 18,300 employees, including 4,900 at general building contractors, 10,300 at nonresidential specialty trade contractors and 3,100 at heavy and civil engineering construction firms.
Employment in residential construction—which includes homebuilders, multifamily general contractors and residential specialty trade contractors—increased by 14,100 between June and July.
Compared to July of last year, the construction industry has added 311,000 jobs, an increase of 4.2 percent. The nonresidential sector added 190,800 of those yearly job gains, an increase of 4.4 percent. Meanwhile, residential construction firms added 120,800 jobs between July 2021 and July 2022, an increase of 4 percent.
The unemployment rate among jobseekers with construction experience fell from 6.1 percent in July 2021 to 3.5 percent in July 2022 month, Sandherr notes. He adds that the construction unemployment rate is at the lowest July level in four years. In addition, the number of unemployed construction workers fell by 233,000, or 39 percent, to 359,000.
Sandherr says that as the number of unemployed construction workers declined, job openings in construction surged. There were 330,000 job openings in construction at the end of June, which is the second highest number of job openings for the month in the 22-year history of the construction industry job opening series, which federal officials released earlier this week.
Association officials say the challenge is too few people are aware of the many opportunities and benefits available of working in construction. The bulk of federal education funding is designed to encourage students to attend college and pursue office-style jobs, Sandherr explains.
“It is time to start telling Americans there are multiple paths to success and that one of those paths is a career in construction,” Sandherr says. “Investing in infrastructure and chip plants is important but investing in the people to build those facilities is essential.”
Related articles: Hourly construction wages hit 40-year high amid rising demand for workers | Construction spending down in June
ZenRobotics will retain its name and become a Terex brand.
Terex Materials Processing (MP) has acquired the assets of ZenRobotics Ltd., a company based in Helsinki, Finland, that designs and creates robots that sort recyclables using proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) software.
ZenRobotics will retain its name and become a Terex brand, with the unit reporting to Tony Devlin, who leads the Terex MP environmental businesses, according to a news release issued by Terex Corp., headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
ZenRobotics was started in 2007. With its technology, operators can upgrade their recycling infrastructure to meet modern requirements, Terex says.
In 2009, ZenRobotics began using AI-based robots to sort recyclables, which led to the introduction of the ZenRobotics Recycler in Helsinki. In 2015, ZenRobotics launched its Heavy Picker, which is designed to sort bulky construction and demolition (C&D) debris. The company expanded into China and the U.S. market in 2016.
ZenRobotics' Heavy Picker is a multipurpose sorting robot for bulky material. Equipped with sturdy arms, various sensors and AI, Terex says it provides “a simple, unstaffed sorting process and makes waste sorting more accurate, safe, and profitable.” Its other offerings include the Fast Picker, a high-speed sorting robot designed for maximizing material recovery. It is compactly designed for easy integration into existing processes and conveyors in material recovery facilities, and it increases profits by enabling fully automated sorting and higher output purity, Terex says. ZenBrain is the company’s AI for sorting robots that has advanced recognition ability and autonomous decision-making.
Terex is active within global waste markets through Terex Ecotec, Terex CBI, Terex Fuchs and Terex Recycling. Zen Robotics will add to the Terex portfolio in global waste, where it will continue to be operated as a stand-alone business while also benefiting from MP’s broader market presence and from efficiencies enabled by MP’s global scale, Terex says. This acquisition of a highly “green-focused” company further supports MP’s commitment to its environmental business and environment, social and governance (ESG) goals.
“ZenRobotics is an exciting, modern company that lends itself perfectly to our pre-existing environmental expertise, and their ethos of making a circular economy more possible aligns perfectly with our goals and targets for the future of Terex MP,” Devlin says. “We’re excited to see the many ways that we can apply this technology and what potential this acquisition can bring Terex MP with the application of this technology. The journey that we’re about to begin with ZenRobotics and Terex MP is one that we look forward to starting, and we extend a warm welcome our new colleagues into the Terex MP team.”
Jarmo Ruohonen, CEO of ZenRobotics, adds, “We at ZenRobotics are delighted to be welcomed into the Terex MP team and we look forward to sharing our knowledge. As a company, we have worked hard for the past 15 years creating technology that helps companies efficiently deal with different types of waste materials, helping to chase down targets that propel us towards a more circular economy. Terex MP is the perfect partner to help us achieve that, and being part of the Terex MP team will give ZenRobotics more global opportunities to grow.”
Russia-based steel producer is accepting offers for its facilities in North America.
The London-based Evraz plc subsidiary of Moscow-based Evraz has announced it is in the process of soliciting proposals for the acquisition of its Evraz North American subsidiaries.
The company says the sale will allow it to “unlock the stand-alone value of the North America business,” acknowledging global sanctions on Russian companies by saying the sale “will require approval from relevant sanctions authorities,” including the United Kingdom’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI).
Evraz plc says the solicitation process is currently being conducted under an OFSI general license, “and we are in contact with OFSI as part of this process.” Beyond that, the steel producer adds, “Evraz does not intend to provide any additional information on this process unless or until the process is finalized.”
The steelmaker describes Evraz North America as a vertically integrated producer of engineered steel products for the North American rail, energy, industrial and construction markets. It has annual crude steelmaking capacity of 2.3 million tons and finished steel (such as rail or tubular products) capacity of 3.5 million tons.
The company operates two electric arc furnace (EAF) mills, one in Pueblo, Colorado, and the other in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Just last year, Evraz announced a significant investment project for the Regina rail mill. It also idled a melt shop in Portland, Oregon, several years ago.
Evraz also operates four downstream rolling mills, eight downstream tube mills, and 17 scrap recycling facilities in North America, with its website indicating the scrap yards are in Colorado and North Dakota in the United States and in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada.