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BIR delegates weigh India import barrier
LONDON -- Scrap metal imports into India have come to a halt as confusion hangs over the introduction of mandatory new pre-shipment inspections, members of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) said Thursday at its autumn roundtable.
India has ruled that all imports of unshredded ferrous and nonferrous scrap must have an independent inspection from a non-government agency to guarantee that the scrap shipment does not contain explosive material. |
This ruling came after workers recently were killed when a mortar exploded at Bhushan Steel & Strips Ltd. in India while scrap was being unloaded from a container (AMM, Oct. 5).
Inspection agencies, however, said they are unsure of the new requirements and cannot guarantee the exact contents of a shipment of scrap. "We have been advised by our lawyers not to undertake such checks," said Dave Cross from inspection firm Alfred H. Knight.
Shipping lines also have refused to take containers of scrap to India because of the confusion and the delays caused by the congestion.
"We have to follow the Indian government's instructions, which won't allow cargoes to be unloaded without all the new certificates," Rick Alfonso, general manager of shipping line Escombe & Lambert, said.
"Until you convince the Indian authorities to relax these rules, we won't ship. We want to ship and as soon as we can, we will," he told the scrap exporters.
All shipments in the pipeline and all pending contracts will continue to suffer unless the Indian government clarifies the situation, said Salam Sharif of United Arab Emirates-based Sharif Metals Ltd. and vice president of the BIR's nonferrous division.
"A series of explosions in different parts of the country have reverberated in the corridors of power in New Delhi," a delegate said.
Members of the Brussels-based association proposed a number of solutions that a BIR working group will take to the Indian government. They included banning of cargoes from certain Middle East ports but allowing shipments from other regions, notably Europe and the United States.
There are reports that Indian steelmakers are out of scrap and are aggressively looking to obtain European shredded material.
Indian importers have clamped down in the wake of reports that military scrap is being delivered to mills. The steelmakers panicked and began dumping in the sea or desert what explosives they find, said Iqbal Nathani of Nathani Steel Ltd. There is a two-week amnesty now for mills to hand in military scrap without prosecution, he added.
Industry members warned that the military scrap would find new markets in Asia, most likely China.
Robert Voss, president of British nonferrous metals trader Voss International Ltd. and chairman of the BIR session, concluded that there was no immediate solution to the dilemma in India.
"We must form a group to make our proposals to the Indian government," Voss said. "The group must contain representatives from exporters, importers, consumers, shipping lines, freight forwarders and Indian customs officials if possible. It is clear that we cannot ship now. We will have to take our material to the shredders."
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