[alfa] Steel and scrap metal

["John Fielding" <johnf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

The common source of new steel today is to use a high proportion of scrap motor cars.
This is because the steel used in unitary construction cars is a high quality  with good
tensile strength properties.  I believe the percentage of scrap used is around 80% of the
total volume.

Durban harbour imports a vast amount of scrap iron and steel every year mostly from
Taiwan, Korea, Japan and previously Soviet block countries.  Odd really as we have one of
the biggest supply of raw iron ore in the world.  This we export mainly to America and
Russia, along with all the coal they could wish for.  It simply isn't economic to build a
iron ore processing plant to do it ourselves.  The same goes for bauxite ore.  RSA is one
of the biggest suppliers of bauxite.  It gets shipped to Sweden and Norway were it is
refined and then shipped back to us in ingot form for the final alloying process.  Again
it is simple economics.  The metals mined here goes on and on.  Vanadium, the backbone of
Detroit motor industry, all comes from here.  Platinum, we are the worlds biggest
supplier, and no we don't want to buy it back as catalytic converters thank you!  Chromium
is another huge money spinner and let us not forget gold.  RSA is the third largest
producer of the metal, the second is Russia and the major supplier is Tanzania in West
Africa, all the big mines are owned by either American or UK companies.

John
Durban
South Africa
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