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*Scrap price represents a composite of #1 Bundle/Busheling


According to AMM, the price of low residual steel scrap was at or below $140/ton for nearly 20 years and then spiked in 2004. Pig iron, produced from iron ore (right), also has seen price increases.


levels. Muratore said that while the price of low residual steel scrap was at or below $140/ton for nearly 20 years, that price has not been seen since 2003-2004. He believes it may never be seen again.


Nonferrous Fluctuation No reported shortage exists for


the primary nonferrous casting alloys; from aluminum and copper to tin and zinc, the metals are out there. “Most of the nonferrous materi-


als are readily available, but pricing has been pretty wild,” said Richard Henning, president of nonferrous alloy supplier Belmont Metals Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y. “Originally, we all felt the demand in China for raw material drove the price up. But after that, we felt speculators got into the market… they weren’t getting the returns in the stock market or money market, so commodities were where they could [succeed]. Recently, with the stock market drop, it has caused the com- modities to drop.” Copper has been one of the most


volatile of the nonferrous materials. Even in the absence of a true market shortage, Cobett said purchasers of copper-based casting alloys should behave as if there were one. “Everyone wants it, and yet there is lots of copper (around 10 tons per day) that ends up in landfi lls because people don’t know where it is,” Cobett said. “One third of the copper that is mined is sitting in landfi lls.” According to Cobett, copper


22 | MODERN CASTING September 2011


finds its way into landfills in the form of household appliances (and their cords) and automobiles. The remaining two-thirds of the mined copper that is readily available is enough to satisfy market demands, but finding a way to reduce the amount of copper going to landfills in the first place would reduce pres- sures and alleviate price increases. Part of the problem is that the


technology to separate copper from other scrap materials does not exist. “When an automobile is shred-


ded, everything goes in except the lead battery and lead wheel weights, and it is separated into two piles—magnetic and non-magnetic,” Cobett said. “You might think all the copper goes with non-magnetic, but a lot of it goes with the iron and steel. That copper goes to a steel mill and becomes a part of the recycled steel flow.” So, not only has the steel scrap


stream been contaminated, exacerbat- ing the existing scrap concerns for ferrous casters, but the copper can no longer be used as a base alloy. Cobett said the technology neces-


sary to solve the problem is a long time coming. “It’s not on the horizon yet,” he


said. “Is it technically possible? Yes. But it is not cost eff ective.” Cobett said much of the rest of the copper that goes to waste is in the form of “shredder fl uff ” or residue— lumps of plastic, foam, belts and hoses in which small pieces of copper hide.


“It’s maybe a half percent by


weight, but [some alloy suppliers] throw away up to 4,000 tons of that shredder fluff a day,” Cobett said. “That’s a truckload of copper a day going to landfills, and we will never see it.” The one chance we will have to see it again, according to Cobett, is through the mining of landfills—a practice that is undertaken only in rare cases. Mining landfills is expen- sive, Cobett said, but when prices skyrocket, no stone (or landfill) is left unturned.


Magnesium also has caused pur-


chasers problems in the past several years. Because the majority of the material is produced in China (about 85%), it is disproportionately more expensive than alternatives and there- fore diffi cult to market to end-users. Export taxes have traditionally pushed the price even higher. “[Magnesium] is an economic


challenge due to a raw material cost imbalance,” said Rob Bailey, presi- dent of B.S. Metallugy Inc., Mani- towoc, Wis. In the past, the cost of magne- sium was compounded yet again by the application of an anti-dumping duty on lots coming from Russia and China. While the duty remains on the Chinese materials, the International Trade Commission


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