Metal Scrap

We work the buy side, and vessel scrap is the centre of it. End-of-life ships are bought on light displacement tonnage and broken into re-rollable plate for the re-rolling mills, ship-plate HMS for the melt shops, marine bronze and copper cabling, and second-hand machinery — a single Capesize carries more steel than a year of yard collection, which is why we build the desk around it and why Hong Kong Convention compliance, IHM survey and yard authorisation (EU-listed yards only for EU-flag ships) are handled before a price is agreed. Around that sits the rest of the book: heavy melting steel in the 80:20 mix Turkish and South Asian mills contract against, shredded and busheling for EAF charges, stainless 304 and 316 solids and turnings, copper in Millberry, Candy and Birch/Cliff grades, aluminium as Taint/Tabor, extrusion, Zorba, Twitch and baled UBC, yellow and red brass, cast iron and lead, with used lead-acid batteries only under Basel prior informed consent of both states. Supply comes from recycling yards, processors, demolition contractors and industrial generators across Europe, North America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Every lot is bought against a written specification rather than a photograph: ISRI/ReMA grade, chemistry where it matters, maximum permissible attachments and free-of clauses covering radioactive material, explosives, sealed containers, military scrap and hazardous residues.

Scrap is priced off a benchmark, not off a list. Non-ferrous grades trade as a percentage of the LME cash settlement for the underlying metal — Millberry copper typically in the mid-to-high nineties, secondary aluminium and brass at wider discounts that move with alloy content and preparation — while ferrous exports are contracted against the Turkish import HMS 1&2 80:20 CFR index. That is why a quote without a grade, a tonnage and a discharge port is meaningless, and why we ask for all three before we go to market. On the execution side we arrange SGS, Intertek, Cotecna or Bureau Veritas supervision at loading, radiation scanning with certificate, container weighing and VGM, and the destination paperwork that actually clears customs — pre-shipment inspection certificates for India, Basel Annex VII green-list documentation for shipments moving under the Basel Convention, and the Chinese recycled-raw-material standards where the cargo is destined for China. Heavy grades load into 20ft containers on weight rather than volume, typically 24–27 MT per box, and we structure LC-at-sight, CAD and part-payment terms around the size of the position.