UK-based metals recycler Ward has opened a second deep-sea export facility for large bulk ferrous scrap cargoes at Redcar Bulk Terminal in northeast England.
The new port facility will initially create up to 10 jobs and increase Ward's capability to ship deep-sea scrap cargoes to Turkey, Italy and the rest of the world.
The Redcar terminal is well set up for metals trade as it was the port hub for imports of raw materials and exports of steel products by the former SSI blast furnace steel mill, which closed in 2015 after 98 years of operations. At least one deep-sea cargo has been shipped from Redcar by another UK merchant since the steel mill's closure.
The opening of the dock is the latest in a series of rapid expansionary moves by Derbyshire-based Ward that have taken it from a regional domestic supplier and small-to-medium-sized overseas scrap seller to the fourth-largest exporter of ferrous scrap in the UK.
Ward opened its first deep-sea facility in 2018, when it took over the scrap export dock at Immingham. The company initially shipped deep-sea cargoes from Immingham once every three to four months, but has steadily increased shipments over the past three years.
Argus tracked an estimated 253,000t of deep-sea ferrous scrap shipments from Immingham in 2020, an almost threefold increase from an estimated 84,000t in 2019. Deep-sea shipments from the port have increased rapidly again this year, with cargoes tracked to date totalling an estimated 285,000t, already in excess of the 2020 figure.
Aside from increased deep-sea export capacity, the Redcar terminal is also a significant geographic expansion of Ward's operations in the UK. In addition to Immingham, the company's existing scrap yards are mainly clustered in the north Midlands and outside of the Redcar dock it has no sites in the northeast. The Redcar dock will immediately become a major buyer for ferrous scrap from the Tees Valley and Tyne regions.
