WHAT IS MEANT BY THE PRICE OF OLD IRON?
The slang term "old iron" it is usually used by private citizens referring to two categories that we find commercially under the nomenclatures of: “collected iron” and “mixed metals”.
“The term iron commonly refers to all categories of carbon steels, which differ from stainless steels, which on the contrary have a low carbon content and a high nickel and/or chromium content.”
The expression "old iron scrap" therefore usually refers to accumulations of carbon steels of mixed alloys or accumulations of mixed metals with a prevalence of carbon steels.
Therefore we can assert that the price of old iron technically does not exist, but the price of the different categories of carbon steel or mixed metals does exist.
Contrary to what happens in the non-ferrous sector, such as copper or aluminium, the price in the ferrous sector is not linked to the stock market trend, but to the demand trends of the real economy, in particular of the building construction and of metalworking linked to the automotive world.
“The commercial categories of the iron scrap market also include cast iron and everything that revolves around the car demolition market such as bodywork packages.”
Steel mills create semi-finished and finished products such as coils, rods, billets, wire rods, tubes and sheets which are purchased by the manufacturing and construction industries. So if consumption in these two sectors is high and the steel mills have sales orders, then the price of scrap iron used to create new products rises, otherwise it falls.
THE SUBJECTS OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN
manufacturing production
recycling industry
steelworks and distributor
Material uniformity.
It determines the price as it helps to increase or decrease the steps necessary to arrive at the steel mill with loads of iron scrap homogeneous by chemical and commercial type.
If a load of ferrous scrap is already homogeneous and oven ready, it will avoid being further treated and sheared, thus avoiding further costs and speeding up the work.
Amount.
It affects bargaining due to the fact that small quantities must first be collected in recovery plants, until at least a complete load of 28 tons is reached.
Large loads help reduce transportation, loading/unloading and storage costs.
For this reason, if the quantity of iron scrap you have is large, you can ask for a higher price.
For smaller quantities, such as for micro-collection, if the market is low, it may also happen that the cost of loading and transport is greater than the value of the goods themselves, in this case a collection can take place at 0 cost.
shearing.
It is a fundamental aspect that divides iron scrap into two macro categories, which are iron scrap that is "oven ready" and that which is not.
Short sheared material, less than one and a half metres, has a higher market price because it is considered kiln ready.
Furthermore, the more scrap is cut into shorter pieces, the less volume it creates and therefore more tons can be loaded onto the same truck, reducing the transport cost per ton.
However, not all categories of iron scrap must necessarily be sheared, such as shovel sheet metal or turnings.
