Nonferrous

China remains the leading export market for copper despite customs and environmental regulations affecting the status of some melting facilities and the acceptance of some imported shipments.

Lower grades of copper are increasingly being scrutinized by the Chinese government, but the nation’s vast number of smelters and refineries are still seeking material.

One scrap processor related a rumor he has heard that brokers are buying cable and having work crews located on ocean-going vessels strip the cable and dump the plastic insulation in the ocean while producing a clean enough copper wire grade to make it past customs.

For copper overall, July ended on a downbeat note when copper futures closed down after the announcement that U.S. economic growth slowed considerably in the second quarter of 2002.

On the aluminum side, domestic demand is steady from smelters and other melting facilities. "Aluminum scrap is unseasonably short in supply as secondary producers are keen buyers of all grades in light of continued good demand for their product," Robert Stein of Louis Padnos Iron & Metals, Holland, Mich., writes for a recent Bureau of International Recycling report.

Auto shredders with higher output in the late spring and early summer helped put some aluminum twitch out on the market, but some other grades of aluminum have been harder to find.

Those dealing in UBCs hope the prolonged heat wave of the early summer will have created a substantial supply of beverage cans collected in curbside containers and at redemption centers.