Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Pillaged copper pours out of Iraq
Declan Conway (Reuters) London, May 20
Thousands of tonnes of copper pillaged from power networks and buildings are flowing out of Iraq each day, traders said on Tuesday.
"It's all coming out of Iraq via people who cut up this copper cable from under the ground and drive it to the border," a trader in Kuwait told Reuters.
He said he had received 1,000 tonnes of copper scrap -- worth more than $1.5 million -- each day over the past fortnight and also knew of material going into Turkey and Iran as well as south through Kuwait.
On that basis, copper is currently being scrambled out of Iraq at a rate equivalent to more than a third of the world's regular scrap supply, traders said.
Most of the metal being trucked into neighbouring countries was largely the type used in underground power and communications cables, with the rest probably from wire and tubing typically found in construction.
Iraq, hit by a wave of looting after the fall of President Saddam Hussein, has no primary metals production.
"The metal is being collected in Iraq by ordinary people who are delivering across the borders," a trader in the United Arab Emirates told Reuters. He said he had heard of about 1,000 tonnes of scrap leaving Iraq in the past two weeks, mostly trucked to consumers in Iran, with the rest being moved on to buyers in India and China.
Another Kuwait-based dealer said: "There are traders from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India and Pakistan wanting material.
"I have 200 tonnes a day going to Umm Qasr for shipment to Sri Lanka and India, 200 to Iran and the rest equally divided between Turkey and the UAE." The UAE-based trader said: "There's only so much non-ferrous scrap to be had in a country like Iraq...There are no scrap trading companies there, but now there are so many people involved that buyers are simply waiting at the border."
Dealers reported talk of aluminium and brass scrap coming from Iraq but said they had yet to hear of a firm deal.
Thousands of tonnes of military scrap are lying around the country, but worries about radioactive contamination would probably leave that material untouched for years to come, traders said.
"A lot of the missiles that hit tanks and machinery were uranium-tipped -- that scrap has to be left for at least 30 years before you can touch it," a trader said. Copper scrap prices in western Europe are currently around 1,350 euros ($1,575) a tonne.
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