Imports of scrap into Germany from January to June totalled 2.306 million tonnes, a drop of -15.3% compared to the first half of 2014, Kallanish learns from preliminary customs data.

The vast majority of imports, or 2.003m tonnes, originated from EU countries, but these saw a more pronounced fall by -18.0%. Against that, volumes from third countries rose by 7.4% to 302,500t. The biggest increase was for deliveries from Russia, which doubled over the first six months to 69,300t, but more recently saw a notable drop from 13,500t in May to only 4,000t in June.

Against that, two other eastern European countries saw growth. Imports from the Czech Republic increased by 86% to 84,400t, and Poland sent 30% more scrap year-on-year reaching a volume of 90,500t. Deliveries from EU countries in total increased by 13% to 376,200t in the last two months of the period.

Imports from other significant non-EU countries also fell from May to June. Landings from Norway plunged by -51% to 12,000t, while those from Switzerland fell by -1.5% to 20,200t.

Scrap prices in Germany are still higher than in many other European countries, so that exports are virtually out of the question, one market observer mentions to Kallanish.

The biggest supplier is the Netherlands from whom Germany imported 503,200t in the first half of 2015.