India: Stainless Steel scrap imports fall 13% m-o-m in Mar'22

Stainless steel scrap imports in Mar'22 stood at 90,000 tonnes (t), down 13% as against 110,000 t in Feb, as per SteelMint data. Overall imports during Jan-Mar'22 stood at 330,000 t.

Volatile LME nickel prices and the Ukraine-Russia war impacted scrap imports from overseas. On the other hand, logistics cost also fuelled reliability on domestic and near shore sources.

Series wise trend:
The 300 series import volumes stood at 74,538 t in Mar'22, down 17% as against 89,298 t in Feb'22, 200 series volumes were at 8,447 t and 400 series volumes stood at 8,010 t, as per data compiled by SteelMint.
The most traded 304 grade scrap import also dropped 37% in march'22 although 430 grade scrap shown positive volume which increased 18%.
Domestic traders most preferred Zurik scrap volume was recorded at 20,790 t up 23% from February volume. North Indian recycling facility addon value by sorting in Zurik scrap which gets 304 scrap, copper and aluminum after segregation.
Country-wise breakup:
USA stood as the largest exporter: The USA was the largest exporter with 12,505 t in Mar'22 followed by UAE and Malaysia with 8,437 t and 8,165 t respectively.
The Southeast Asian countries (Thailand and Vietnam) have contributed 13,659 t in export volumes, whereas turkey exported 3,312 t of stainless-steel scrap in Mar'22.

India is import dependent on stainless steel scrap which imports around 1.2 million tonnes of scraps every year.