U.S. Precious Metal Scrap Exports Dropped Marginally

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The recent trade statistics published by the US Census Bureau suggests slight decline in exports of precious metal scrap by the country during the initial five-month period of the current year. On the other hand, imports recorded notable increase during this period.

The exports totaled $1.88 billion through May this year. This is marginally down by 0.63% when matched with the exports of $1.90 billion during the corresponding five-month period last year. It must be noted that exports of precious metal scrap had totaled $4.30 billion during the entire year 2018.

The top five foreign markets for US exports were Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. These five countries received more than 89% of the precious metal scrap shipments out of the US. The imports by Canada totaled $580.57 million, accounting for approximately 31% all US exports. The imports by the country surged higher by nearly 44% over the previous year. Imports by Italy surged higher by almost 19% to total $314.85 million. Meantime the imports by the UK stood at $314.61 million. Germany and Japan imported $266.08 million and $209.14 million worth of precious metal scrap during Jan-May ’19.

The US imports of scrap of precious metals surged higher by 9.02% through May this year to $812.13 million. The key suppliers were Germany, Canada, the UK, Mexico and Japan, which together accounted for over 67% of total imports by the US.