Wilson Metal Recycling
Metal Commodities and Recycling Report
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, July 6th, 2015. My name is
Greg Brown, President and CEO of the companies.
There
was a lot of news last week, but only yesterday and this morning there was
major news that led to changes in commodities and recycling. The bad news yesterday and this morning is
that the Greek debt issue is far from being resolved, especially with the Greek
people turning down an offer from the EU yesterday. It is not clear what effect this will have on
the global economy, but things are not good.
 |
| Steel Production |
On the positive side, steel production came
down a bit last week, but overall it has been coming up slowly for months. Schnitzer Steel released lower earnings last
week despite slightly higher steel shipments.
Lower earnings in their recycling division as well as other all other
divisions hurt the company.
 |
| Oil Rig Count |
Importantly there was a lot of good news last
week. The oil rig count rose for the
first time in 29 weeks. Oil rigs use
major amounts of steel. June auto sales were
the highest for any June in 10 years. Pending
home sales ending May hit a nine year high and the jobs report had unemployment
hit 5.3% which was the lowest in over 9 years.
The downside is wage growth remains weak. Together these are some of the reasons we are
seeing a slow increase in steel production.
 |
| Heavy Melt Price |
As for Ferrous pricing, despite increases in steel production we are hearing
that multiple steel companies have barges of scrap metal arriving this month
from Europe could cause a dampening of scrap metal prices this month. There were some lower priced ferrous sales
last week and the rest will be traded in the next few days. There is still a possibility of no decrease in
some markets and even a small increase in that especially in the SE there
remains a scrap metal shortage.
Importantly,
steel mills did not cancel orders in the SE last week, which would have
happened if there was a major decrease in prices coming. They did not cancel orders
due to steel mills needed scrap metal flowing into their operations, before and
after the holiday weekend.
 |
| Copper Prices |
Copper prices were steady last week for the third week in a row, yet in the
past few hours prices dropped to an almost 6+ year low. China’s economy which is a key for copper
prices remains in flux with its stock market having fallen over 20% in recent
weeks. Due to the major stock market drop, effective today, the Chinese
government has authorized a massive buying of stocks by brokers to try and stabilize
stock prices.
 |
| Aluminum |
Aluminum is pretty much the same as copper in
that it too has not seen any real change in recent weeks until today.
Overall
there while there was some very positive news, mixed with very negative Greek
news, prices and volumes in recycling remain very, very depressed. There is word of more scrap metal operations
closing in parts of the industry. The SE
part of the U.S. continues to see larger volume drop offs vs. other parts of
the U.S., due to dramatically lower retail peddler traffic. Only the strong and diversified will make it
through this tough time as well as those that have partnered with stronger
operations.
For
current prices, please call us at 919-828-5426 in Raleigh, 919-731-5600 in
Goldsboro.
With
that we hope all have a Safe and Profitable week. Tune in next week for the Commodity and Recycling
report.
