The associations bvse - Federal Association of Secondary Raw Materials and Waste Disposal and BDSV - Federal Association of German Steel Recycling and Waste Disposal Companies have once again drawn up the German Steel Scrap Balance this year.
Decreased production
German crude steel production fell by -3.8% to just 35.4 million t in 2023. While the output of oxygen steel production was relatively stable at -0.9%, electrical steel production, which is essentially based on scrap, fell drastically by -10.8%.
As a result, steel mills' purchases of scrap fell noticeably by -8.6%, falling from 12.8 million t to 11.7 million t. Scrap imports fell significantly by -20.7% and fell to 3.5 million t, while exports moved roughly sideways at -0.5%.
The share of electrical steel, measured in total crude steel production, fell by -2.1% to just 27.7%. The share of scrap in crude steel production also fell to approximately the same extent (-2.2%), so that the share of scrap in crude steel production fell back to just 42.3%.
Scrap use for crude steel production fell by 8.6% to 15.0 million t in 2023, while scrap consumption in the foundry industry fell by only -2.8%. Overall, steel scrap consumption fell by -7.4% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
The total German scrap consumption in 2023 is estimated by the associations bvse and BDSV at 19.2 million t.
