U.S. Precious Metal Scrap Exports Surged 12%

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The U.S. exports of scrap of precious metals totalled $3.69 billion through September this year. This is significantly higher by 11.89% when compared with the exports of $3.30 billion during the corresponding nine-month period in 2018. The category was ranked in 64^th position, as per the latest trade data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The top trade partner during the year was Canada. The exports to Canada totalled $1.18 billion, accounting for more than 32% of all U.S. shipments. The shipments to Canada increased significantly by 46.2%, upon comparison with the year before that. The second top export destination was the UK, which received $713.98 million of scrap of precious metals from the U.S. The exports to the UK were up significantly by nearly 10% over the year and represented nearly 20% market share. In third place was Italy, which accounted for almost 15% of the total U.S. exports. The exports to that country totalled $547.04 million. The other key importers during Jan-Sep ’19 were Germany ($494.51 million) and Japan ($396.21 million).

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The above top five export destinations accounted for more than 90% of the total U.S. shipments of precious metals scrap.

Also, the imports of precious metals scrap have increased by 24.54% during the initial nine months of 2019 to $1.74 billion from $1.40 billion in Jan-Sep ‘18. The leading sources were Germany ($492.48 million), Canada ($273.81 million), the U.K. ($219.68 million), Mexico ($123.16 million), and Japan ($96.17 million). These top five foreign markets accounted for more than 69% of all the imports of precious metal scrap by the U.S. from January to September in 2019.