Scrap metal prices

smstonypoint · Nov 20, 2015

aczlan said:
China stopped building ghost cities, so they don't need as much steel to make into rebar.

Aaron Z

An amazing statistic from a recent article about those ghost cities http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/: "...... from 2011 to 2013, 6.6 billion tons of concrete were used in China -- that's about 2 billion tons more than were used in the United States over the entire 20th century." Wow!

Steve

old gray · Nov 22, 2015

smstonypoint said:
An amazing statistic from a recent article about those ghost cities http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/: "...... from 2011 to 2013, 6.6 billion tons of concrete were used in China -- that's about 2 billion tons more than were used in the United States over the entire 20th century." Wow!

Steve

Thanks for the info. I only new a lot of steel was going to China

Big Barn · Nov 22, 2015

A lot of you guys are lucky you can still buy product from scrap yards.

Liability issues force a lot of yards to discontinue dealing with 'buyers'

Friends of mine discontinued this practice years ago. Got fed up wasting time with "nickel and dimers". They told me the story of a guy that came by three times in two weeks trying to purchase a length of pipe for $5.00.

One day they decided to put an end to it for good. They had an employee use the gas powered cut off saw to chop their entire 'racked steel' inventory in half and picked it up with the magnet. End of story.

No more sales.

Terry

Travelover · Nov 22, 2015

Big Barn said:
A lot of you guys are lucky you can still buy product from scrap yards.

Liability issues force a lot of yards to discontinue dealing with 'buyers'

Friends of mine discontinued this practice years ago. Got fed up wasting time with "nickel and dimers". They told me the story of a guy that came by three times in two weeks trying to purchase a length of pipe for $5.00.

One day they decided to put an end to it for good. They had an employee use the gas powered cut off saw to chop their entire 'racked steel' inventory in half and picked it up with the magnet. End of story.

No more sales.

Terry

I've got a great scrap yard by me and I'm a "nickel and dimer", but they don't seem to mind one bit and are always courteous and friendly. I also notice when I hand over my cash it goes straight into the owner's pocket.

Big Barn · Nov 22, 2015

Travelover said:
I've got a great scrap yard by me and I'm a "nickel and dimer", but they don't seem to mind one bit and are always courteous and friendly. I also notice when I hand over my cash it goes straight into the owner's pocket.

I'm sure if ALL their nickel and dimers were like you they'd still be selling.

Terry

bjr · Nov 22, 2015

You guys are fortunate to be where you have a decent business economy. Honest folks selliing honestly aquired metal. Now where I'm located the scrap yards had to put kinda a hold on the payouts and required driver licenses numbers on the payouts. Its seem as though here in WA state when the Pot got Legalize the metal theft jumped and the honest sellers payed the price. The farms were losing wiring from there pump stations, the hiway dept. were losing metal road signs and guard rail steel. I don't know how the yards were buying that stuff with wondering where it came from? From what I see in this state, it's a drug driven economy. China doesn't stand a chance compared to people that are willing to rip the wiring from their rented homes to buy drugs. Just my thoughts. bjr

old gray · Nov 22, 2015

bjr said:
You guys are fortunate to be where you have a decent business economy. Honest folks selliing honestly aquired metal. Now where I'm located the scrap yards had to put kinda a hold on the payouts and required driver licenses numbers on the payouts. Its seem as though here in WA state when the Pot got Legalize the metal theft jumped and the honest sellers payed the price. The farms were losing wiring from there pump stations, the hiway dept. were losing metal road signs and guard rail steel. I don't know how the yards were buying that stuff with wondering where it came from? From what I see in this state, it's a drug driven economy. China doesn't stand a chance compared to people that are willing to rip the wiring from their rented homes to buy drugs. Just my thoughts. bjr

Same thing was happening here. Except the drugs are Heroin. Lots of OD's also. Major problem. Steel prices are down so now steel isn't being stolen so much.

300UGUY · Nov 23, 2015

old gray said:
Same thing was happening here. Except the drugs are Heroin. Lots of OD's also. Major problem. Steel prices are down so now steel isn't being stolen so much.

Lots of stuff was stolen here. AC units, farm equipment, anything metal. Scrap yards ran commercials - "metal is money" and were not interested in where it came from. Been going on for a long time, 20 years plus here.

300UGUY · Nov 23, 2015

smstonypoint said:
An amazing statistic from a recent article about those ghost cities http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/: "...... from 2011 to 2013, 6.6 billion tons of concrete were used in China -- that's about 2 billion tons more than were used in the United States over the entire 20th century." Wow!

Steve

I saw a estimate that China's normal demand for steel is less than half it's current output. And most is produced by state owned companies, so politics plays a big part in not shutting down mills.

newbury · Nov 23, 2015

smstonypoint said:
An amazing statistic from a recent article about those ghost cities http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/: "...... from 2011 to 2013, 6.6 billion tons of concrete were used in China -- that's about 2 billion tons more than were used in the United States over the entire 20th century." Wow!

Steve

Great link.

æ�œothers-in-law are the driving force behind China's unrelenting real estate boom."

Reads like this may be the other shoe to drop to send the world back into recession.

The ghost city of Ordos has become quite famous in the past couple years. Or, to be more specific, Kangbashi has. The sprawling, 137 square mile metropolis was planned in 2003 as a subdistrict of Ordos. It was built 16 miles from the preexisting urban center of Dongsheng.

It was thought that Kangbashi would hold over a million people. In 2014, it was said to hold a æ–—onely 20,000. Thatç—´ like building a city the size of Dallas, and having only a small suburb move into it.

137 square miles, 20,000 people, sounds crowded to me. Itawamba county is about 500 square miles and 25,000 people. Oh, wait! It's a CITY