According to the data provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), in 2012 Turkey's scrap imports amounted to 22.4 million mt, increasing by 4.4 percent compared to the previous year, with a total value of $9.4 billion, down 3.6 percent compared to 2011. Turkey's scrap imports from the US during the year amounted to 6.3 million mt, rising by 8.2 percent year on year, with a value of $2.7 billion, almost stable compared to the previous year.

According to the data released by TUIK, in 2012 the average price of Turkey's steel scrap imports stood at $420/mt, falling compared to the average of $455/mt recorded in 2011.

In the whole of 2012, Turkey imported 11.5 million mt of steel scrap from the EU, up 16 percent, 6.65 million mt of scrap from North America, up 2.1 percent, and 3 million mt of scrap from the CIS, decreasing by 16.7 percent, all compared to 2011.

Meanwhile, in December 2012 Turkey's steel scrap imports rose 3.3 percent compared to November and were down 15.2 percent compared to the same month of 2011, amounting to 1.8 million metric tons. Turkey's monthly scrap imports generally exceeded 1.8 million mt in 2012, except in January, March and August.

In the fourth quarter of the year, Turkey's scrap imports from North America totaled 1.6 million mt, falling 7.9 percent compared to the third quarter of 2012. Turkey's scrap imports from the region started to trend down on quarter-on-quarter basis in the second half of the year, after 1.9 million mt in the second quarter of 2012, a historical quarterly record for Turkish scrap imports from North America.

The EU increased its steel scrap exports to Turkey in the fourth quarter of the year with 3 million mt of scrap, rising 15.2 percent over the previous quarter and up 16 percent year on year. On the other hand, in the fourth quarter of the year, Turkish scrap imports from the CIS amounted to 606,769 mt, constituting the lowest level since the second quarter of 2010.

Turkey's top 10 steel scrap import sources in 2012 are as follows: