South Korea: Fresh scrap arrivals at ports rise sharply on higher sourcing by POSCO

Scrap arrivals into South Korea rose by a whopping 164% to 68,845 t this week in comparison with a mere 26,108 t on 27 September. Meanwhile, in the latter half of the year, scrap arrivals have rarely exceeded the 100,000 t mark. Notably, half of the port arrivals reported this week consisted of large mother ships brought into Gwangyang by POSCO.

Company-wise arrivals

POSCO: Steel giant POSCO imported about 33,500 t of new iron scrap from the US, out of which 30,000 t were delivered at Gwangyang port and 3,000 t were brought at Pohang. Additionally, Pohang received 30,000 t of HBI, shipped from Malaysia. POSCO has been actively securing contracts for scrap imports from Japan, and HBI's port entries have been consistently confirmed for three consecutive weeks.

Hyundai Steel: Hyundai Steel brought 2,000 t to Dangjin and 11,145 t to Pohang. Notably, there have been no reports of new arrivals at Incheon Port. Port arrival reports have consistently remained below 10,000 t since mid-September, which marks a departure from the long-standing trend of consistently exceeding 10,000 t. Hyundai Steel's average weekly port arrival volume for 2023 stands at 30,041 t.

Dongkuk Steel and SeAH Steel: Dongkuk Steel reported 4,000 t of new arrivals exclusively at Incheon, while SeAH Besteel declared 5,200 t at Gunsan Port. These quantities are relatively small and fall below the average port arrival.

Port-wise arrivals

Masan and Busan ports: Masan Port recorded a total of 7,500 t, with 2,000 t being attributed to Korea Steel. In Busan, Daehan Steel registered 2,500 t of goods for port entry.

Commodities

A noticeable trend in this week's imports is the significant increase in imports of Shindachi scrap. A total of 11,200 t of Shindachi scrap entered the ports, making up 16% of the total scrap arrivals for the week, out of which 6,000 t was booked by Hyundai Steel, approximately half of the reported arrival volume. In addition, HS scrap imports totalled 6,145 t, while H2 stood at 4,000 t.

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