We've got it. They want it. And US mills can do little to stem the tide of heavy melt and shredded scrap flooding out of the East, West and Gulf coasts. Destination number one? China, which in the first 11 months of last year boosted imports of US ferrous scrap to a hefty 5.82 million tonnes.  And its appetite shows few, in any, signs of abating.

Ferrous scrap generated in the United States is torn between two insatiable overseas entities—China and Turkey. When one isn't gobbling up all the shredded scrap that can be found on the West Coast and a cargo or two from an East Coast port, the other is booking 10 or 15 handy-sized (35,000-tonne) shiploads from export yards along the East and Gulf coasts.

Fortunately, the nation's Great Plains lies between the three coastal regions and as a farming region it generates little obsolete scrap and next to nothing in terms of industrial scrap.

At the start of 2009, Turkey had the biggest appetite for U.S. scrap, taking an average of about 320,000 tonnes per month in the first half of the year, capping that in June with a record 633,207 tonnes.

China was even more interested in the supplies of iron and steel scrap it could draw from the United States. In March alone it took a record of nearly 1.2 million tonnes from U.S. ferrous scrap shippers.

The...