In this month’s edition of our Scrap Metal Market report we are happy to report an increase for the 4th consecutive month. The national average price of crushed auto bodies rose almost 6% in March. As a result this increase brings the national average to about $175 per gross ton. Since November, the price per gross ton has increased by almost $45. While this increase is encouraging, we still find ourselves 30% lower than the March average of the last 6 years. This is heavily weighted by extremely poor 2015 and 2016 markets where if we removed those years we would see an even greater disparity between todays scrap metal market and markets of previous years.
Leading the way in March is the West Coast (Zone 1), which increased by almost 27%. In the map below Zone 1 is highlighted in red. Less substantial increases are seen in the four other zones. All showed increases of less than 5%.
An article on scrapmonster.com reports that U.S. ferrous scrap metal exports totaled 13 million tons in 2016. This is more than a 3.5% increase compared to 2015. The primary importer of U.S. scrap in 2016 was Turkey. They accounted for nearly 24% of U.S. exports. It will be worth keeping an eye on this as well as Mexico who accounted for over 15% of ferrous exports.
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