Malaysian regulations create bottlenecks

Metals traders in Asia and North America are reporting the third week of January has brought with it notices from nonferrous scrap importers in Malaysia that inbound loads are not being released by customs agents at some ports.

Two Asia-based traders have relayed stories of several such incidents to Recycling Today, and another trader in the Southeastern United States tells Recycling Today of similar experiences.

The Malaysian government enacted new scrap inspection and purity standards on or about Jan. 10. It spent much of 2021 preparing to modify and adopt a regimen proposed by government-connected inspection agency SIRIM.

With that regimen now in place, one trader comments, “Inspection on arrival is bound to create holdups; it was chaos in China for example.” He adds, “My feeling is that Malaysia Customs may take a more practical approach than China, but who knows.”

Another trader tells Recycling Today the container clearance delays are a concern, but buyers in the nation have not yet signaled panic regarding the situation. However, those buyers also don’t portray a clear understanding whether some grades could prove more problematic than others in the new system.

Any difficulties that could result in Malaysia will have a considerable impact. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, Malaysia imported 428,000 metric tons of aluminum-bearing scrap from the U.S. in the first 10 months of 2021.

That figure points to Malaysia being the leading overseas destination for aluminum scrap last year, outpacing India (351,000 metric tons), South Korea (221,000), China (200,000) and Mexico (140,000) as the only other nations that had crossed the 100,000 metric tons threshold in the first 10 months.

Malaysia also has become the leading importer of alloyed copper-bearing scrap, based on U.S. Census figures for the first seven months of 2021. During that time frame, Malaysia brought in 58,800 metric tons of alloyed red metal scrap exported from the U.S. That far outpaced second-place China, which brought in 26,900 metric tons of such scrap from the U.S. during those seven months.

With China playing a reduced role, India and Malaysia have emerged as two of the fastest-growing overseas buyers of nonferrous scrap shipped out of the U.S. While primary aluminum producers in India sometimes lobby to put clamps on secondary producers in that nation, India’s purchases of such scrap seem poised to continue in 2022.