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It is pretty bad when the big boys stop buying. I did two projects in Puerto Rico the last half of 2008, as we all remember thats when the bottom fell out. It got so bad down there that we could not give the scrap away to get it off the site. It was not cost effective any longer to ship it back to the states. The unfortunate downturn in the scrap market and the stock market turned out to be my demise with my prior company.
1:24 AM
February 14, 2009
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It is crazy how much scrap has dropped. I was getting $590.00 per ton on prepared iron in the summer '08 now I am lucky if I can get them to take it. Lately, they will give me a price and say "but, we are not buying it right now" what's that all about. We started stock piling it at our yard just to get it off the job we are trying to wrap up. Now we will be stuck shipping twice. Hope it hits $590.00 again!
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Thought I would post this photo, as some old timers here remember, I used to post here a few years ago about architectural sculptures, but haven't in a long time.
There was a large 1918 hotel in NYC next to Grad Central Station that was demolished a number of years ago, there was a large sheet copper cornice on top of the facade walls, the cornice went around the perimeter of the "H" shaped hotel and featured 180 of these stamped mask figures. This section is 44" long, about 36" high, 30# of copper in this.
Foolishly most were scrapped for the then scrap price of 60 cents a pound, but a number of them were saved and wound up in salvage stores, this one sold on Ebay recently for $2500 with 9 bids.
The demo guys maybe got the equiv of about $16 in scrap from each section of these, not knowing or caring that they were far more valuable than scrap. Maybe someone here remembers the job, they can kick themselves now for scrapping this material 
These were made in multiple pieces with steel dies in a metal stamping machine, hand soldered and riveted together and then soldered and riveted together on-site into a continuous cornice. Multiple sets of steel dies to make something like this would cost a fortune today, this effectively can't be replicated today. Imagine what this all looked like when the copper was still shiny and new up there on the 28th floor
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11:45 AM
I was looking to see if the goverment could bailout us out, once it went below $3.50lb. we lost hundred's of thousands. But thats demo! Good luck to every one in the coming year, and may your pens be sharpe and your heads screwed on striaght!
[FONT=Verdana]Analysts predict that global copper prices will fall below $3000 and could even plunge to $2500 in 2009. “There have been production cuts in copper across several nations especially in a country like China. China producers’ manufacturing index has fallen to 38 in December, meaning it is hitting copper output,” said Arun Srivastava, a base metal analyst based in Mumbai.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]He said the supply and demand dynamic of copper should normalize around 2011.”Till then, the copper market is going to be down,” Srivastava added.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Recently, the news has come that Freeport McMoRan will cut its copper production by 90,000t in 2009 and 225,000t in 2010 as low metal prices erode margins.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Having breached the psychological $3,000/t level, the copper price is poised to fall further, as LME stocks build to the highest since February 2004. Production cuts have been insufficient, and signs that demand is crumbling are evident.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]This means the market is looking for even more output cuts. We have revised our estimates for global production cuts in mine output to 447,000t, to date. At least another 1 Mt of cuts will be necessary to offset weakening demand and to curb growing LME stocks, which may rise by another 300,000t-500,000t from their current 297,300t.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]If the economic meltdown turns out to be as dire as that of the early 1970s, when copper demand plummeted about 9% over two years, then further price falls in Q1 2009 to sub $3,000/t may be unavoidable.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Copper is the third largest consumed metal after steel and aluminum in the world. Copper is used as electrical conductor, construction material and as components in telecommunications and alloys.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana][/FONT][FONT=Verdana][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]http://www.commodityonline.com/[/FONT]
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