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Iron and steel, which are the basic metals of any industrial society, are vital to the United States for national security and economic well-being. No practical substitutes exist on a large scale for iron and steel because of the relatively high cost of' alternative materials. An iron and steel industry comprises steel mills, iron and steel foundries, and the suppliers of ferrous scrap and iron ore. Iron ore mines provide the major raw material from which iron and steel products are made. Iron and steel scrap raw materials are collected and distributed by brokers, collectors, and dealers in the ferrous scrap industry to steel mills and foundries. Steel mills can be divided into integrated mills, which produce pig iron from iron ore and refine the pig iron to steel, and nonintegrated mills, which use scrap as their primary raw material. Steel mills produce relatively simple steel shapes that adjoining finishing mills roll or hammer into finished products, such as bar, sheet, or structural shapes. Foundries pour molten cast iron or steel into molds to produce castings with the approximate shapes of the final products. The U.S. iron and steel industry and ferrous foundries produced goods valued at about $57 billion in 2002. About 90 companies produced raw steel at about 139 locations with a combined raw steel production capability of about 114 million metric tons (Mt). The foundry industry included about 650 gray and ductile iron casters, 150 steel casters, 100 investment casters, and 15 malleable iron casters that produced more than one type of casting. Domestic steel mills and iron and steel foundries employed about 256,000 workers. Crude steel was produced in 83 countries during 2001 (International Iron and Steel Institute, 2001). China, Japan, and the United States produced about 40 percent of world crude steel. Much of the remainder was produced in Europe, Russia, and the Republic of Korea. Between 1983 and 2001, the Chinese share of world steel production increased from 6 to 18 percent, the U. S. share declined to 12 percent from 15 percent, and the Japanese share remained the same. The steel industries and their histories in China, Europe, and Japan are similar to those of the United States. Early large integrated plants produced most of the steel, but as minimills increased in numbers and size, integrated production declined to about 63 percent in China, 56 percent in Europe, 71 percent in Japan, and 53 percent in the United States. One major difference between many foreign steelmaking industries and that of the United States is the high degree of State control, influence, and financing in many foreign countries.

Significant tungsten mineralization is present within and marginal to a small irregular cupola and dike network of late Proterozoic, porphyritic, biotite-bearing microcline-albite granite in the Al Jurdhawiyah quadrangle (sheet 25/42 D), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The granite is highly enriched in lithium, fluorine, beryllium, tungsten, and tin, and has been heavily veined and greisenized, probably during an intense hydrothermal event related to the emplacement of the granite. Mineralization consists principally of very coarse crystals of wolframite, lesser cassiterite, and minor scheelite in stockworks and in dense, subvertical zones of vuggy quartz veins. Greisenized granite and country-rock hornfels contain some disseminated cassiterite, wolframite, and lesser pyrite. Composite outcrop samples of vein material, greisen, and relatively fresh granite contain up to 6400 ppm tungsten and 300 ppm tin. The outcrop extent of the mineralized area exceeds 700 m by 800 m and encloses four subparallel zones of closely spaced quartz veins. The southernmost of these zones is somewhat distinct, containing higher median concentrations of lithium, fluorine, tin, beryllium, and sulfides, and may have been formed at slightly lower temperatures. Analyzed samples of wadi sediments from the vicinity of the tungsten deposit show that the ore minerals have not been widely dispersed by surficial processes. Anomalous concentrations of tungsten and tin are only present within about 2 km of the mineralized area4 and therefore, similar deposits could easily escape detection in geochemical surveys of low sample-density. Our study suggests that detection of anomalies could be improved by reducing the amount of magnetite and zircon in the analyzed panned concentrate.

This report is based on a presentation delivered at The 12th International Battery Materials Recycling Seminar, March 17-20, 2008, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., about the factors that influence prices for aluminum, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, nickel, rare earth elements, and zinc. These are a diverse group of metals that are of interest to the battery recycling industry. Because the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) closely monitors, yet neither buys nor sells, metal commodities, it is an unbiased source of metal price information and analysis.

Consumption of iron and steel scrap and the health of the scrap industry depend directly on the health of the steelmaking industry. The United States, as well as most of the world, is expected to consume increasing amounts of scrap as a steadily increasing population demands more steel products. World resources of scrap should be sufficient for the foreseeable future. An estimated 75 million metric tons (Mt) of scrap was generated during 1998 in the United States, and 35 Mt of old scrap and 18 Mt of new scrap was consumed. The recycling efficiency was calculated to be 52%, and the recycling rate was found to be 41%.