Oh! Where Have the Mountains of Titanium Scrap Gone?

Abstract

Results of a secondary titanium market survey indicated that an oversupply of titanium scrap does not exist. The mountains of scrap that existed during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s were consumed down to mole hills by the mid to late 1960’s. During the past two and one-half years, even the mole hills’ roots were consumed. The titanium scrap situation is illustrated by a 10-year statistical model (see Table I). The model in the form of a table contains sponge, ingot, and scrap production and consumption statistics. Three assumptions were used, two concerned with fabrication productivity and the third with nonrecoverable scrap losses. Over the total 10-year period, scrap consumption was larger than scrap supply by 7.6%. For the first six years, 18% more scrap was consumed than was generated. For the last four years, scrap supply and demand were in balance, almost within 100 tons. Currently (1969–1970), scrap is in short supply. For the future, table data trends indicate that the short supply will continue. A major effect of the tight supply will be upward pressure on the price of ingot. Scrap is migrating to the steel (including direct alloying and deoxidizing, ferrotitanium production, and exports) and aluminum industries, instead of returning for recycling, because of lower scrap processing costs and technological needs for titanium metal which cannot be met with sponge.