Wilson Metal Recycling
Metal Commodities and Recycling Report
June 15, 2015
404 Maury St. S. Wilson, NC 27893
252-243-3586
This is the Commodities and Recycling report, brought to you by BENLEE the industry leader in roll off trailers and open top scrap trailers, as well as Raleigh and Goldsboro Metal Recycling, the leaders in North Carolina for Scrap Metal, Cardboard, Electronics and Junk Cars.
Today is Monday, June 22, 2015. My name is Greg Brown, President and CEO of the companies.
There was little good news last week in commodities and recycling and in fact there was bad news. As we mention continue to mention, the global economy continues to get better slowly, last week Greek debt had people worried and China is going nowhere fast. The only glimmer of good news was that this morning, the Greeks seem to have come up with some concessions that the other European counties view as positive and has helped stock markets around the world.
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| Steel Production |
Steel production had a nice little uptick last week and is up for the past few months, but it is still well below last year.
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| Oil Rig Count |
The oil rig count has now declined for 28 weeks in a row and is now close to the rig count of 5 years ago. This remains a significant drag on steel consumption. With imports of steel finished goods continuing, there remains a drag on scrap metal production along with steel in oil rigs being down.
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| Heavy Metal Price Composite |
Even with the small ferrous price increase of a couple of weeks ago, scrap flows remain very, very weak, as do profits, especially with copper and aluminum near 6 years lows, which we will discuss in a minute. With these low prices, scrap yards in the Southeast which have a higher percentage of retail business, vs industrial business, have been hit hard, as have been the shredders in the SE and last week, yet another shredder shut down. This one owned by GREER Recycling.
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| Copper Pricing |
Copper prices remain near their 6+ year lows and as we said last week, we see no reason why this will change anytime soon.
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| Aluminum Prices |
Aluminum dropped a bit last week and is also at 6 year lows.
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| Aluminum 6 Year Lows |
We remain in the belief that aluminum prices are near their bottom due to aluminum inventories are also hitting new 6+ year lows.
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| Aluminum Stock Levels |
As said on the bad news, yet another shredder in the Carolinas shut down. We were told GREER Recycling is working with its bank on selling its shredder. The low scrap prices in the market have effected the SE more than the Midwest and NE in that the SE is much more dependent on Retail business, than industrial business. As for other bad news Trailer sales and sales of Class 8 Trucks—tractor trailer units, were down in May for the first reduction year over year in a long time, which is hurting steel production.
On the positive side, sales of existing homes hit a 5 ½ high last month and car sales may have a record year in the history of the industry. This should support some stabilization of commodity prices.
Prices for Aluminum and copper were down last week in Raleigh, Goldsboro and Wilson.
Steel and Junk cars we up. Please call us at 919-828-5426 in Raleigh, 919-731-5600 in Goldsboro and 252-243-3586 in Wilson for prices.
With that we hope all have a Safe and Profitable week. Tune in next week for the Commodity and Recycling report.
