ndia is one of the world’s fastest-growing industry, and getting briefed on various issues scrap markets. Total U.S. scrap exports related to Indian trade. They received a warm to that were valued at more than welcome. “The people we met were very engag- $367 million in 2005, and U.S. ferrous ing and very friendly,” says Randy Goodman, Iexports there grew more than 200 percent from director of international nonferrous marketing 2004 to 2005, to 743,000 mt. Despite this recent and logistics for Carolinas Recycling Group LLC trade growth, scrap exporters wonder if high (Spartanburg, S.C.). Further, “the Indian govern- transportation costs and other barriers will limit ment and business officials expressed serious the country’s attractiveness as a destination for intentions in building the trade connection with U.S. scrap. About two dozen ISRI members and the United States and ISRI constituents,” says staffers decided to see for themselves by partici- Karen Strelitz, executive vice president of pating in a January trade mission organized by California Metal-X (Los Angeles). She says the the association and the U.S. Department of trade mission made her “better prepared to work Commerce. with our trade partners, knowing the growing From on the west coast to in requirements and domestic outline of , its the north and in the east, the mission infrastructure, and its market prospects.” participants spent 10 days traversing the subcon- tinent, visiting 10 metals processing and con- INSIDE INDIA suming facilities and two container terminals, Business trips aren’t glamorous. Other than a meeting with leaders in the country’s metals day trip to the , the tour had a packed, PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALAN ALPERT AND JIM SKIPSEY ALAN ALPERT BY PHOTOGRAPHS

118 _ Scrap _ MARCH/APRIL 2007 www.scrap.org scrap-oriented itinerary. The delegates spent Because there was so little free time, many much of their time in transit, either flying delegates added a few days of sightseeing before among the three cities in which the mission was or after the official visit. Goodman and some based or moving to and from ferrous and nonfer- other delegates took an extra day to see historic rous facilities and shipping terminals that were sites in Kolkata, including Mother Teresa’s for- typically hours away from the downtown hotels. mer house and mission. Goodman found the Still, the travel gave the delegates ample time to mission inspirational. “Being a Jewish person, get a glimpse of a country that has long held a I still felt that I was in the presence of a saint prominent place in the Western imagination. who did God’s work,” he says. “We were in the bus at 6:30 every morning,” Not all of India is beautiful, though. Jim says Jim Snyder of Neville Metals/Assad Iron & Skipsey, a trader with Alpert & Alpert Iron & Metals Inc. (Pittsburgh), “but the sights and Metal Inc. (Los Angeles), was shocked by the sounds of India were there with us. It kept your level of poverty he saw. “It was something I’ve eyes busy every second of every day.” The bus never seen in my entire life, and I’ve been to navigated among wandering Brahma cows, tiny Third World ,” he says. About one- taxis, and people carrying huge loads on their third of India’s people—-a number greater than heads. “It was a most awesome, eye-opening the entire U.S. population—live on less than experience,” Strelitz says. “Every turn, every $1 a day. “I never felt like we were in any moment was a caravan of new and uncharted harm, though,” Skipsey says. “The Indian peo- experiences into the Indian culture and country.” ple were very nice and living in harmony,

FROM DELHI TO MUMBAI TO KOLKATA, ISRI MEMBERS TOOK A GOOD LOOK AT THE INDIAN METALS INDUSTRY AND THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IT PRESENTS FOR U.S. SCRAP. BY ANN C. LOGUE

The ISRI trade mission group (far left) saw everything from manual scrap operations to the sublime Taj Mahal during its 10-day journey through the exotic and perplexing country that is India.

www.scrap.org MARCH/APRIL 2007 _ Scrap _ 119 given that there are so many people crowded in one place.”

INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES For Alan Alpert, president of Alpert & Alpert, the most fascinating aspect of India was “the infrastructure and the way the people got around”: buses, three-wheeled taxis holding 15 people, motorcycles carrying five people, ox carts, bicycles, even camels. Infra - structure is one of the country’s biggest weaknesses, the delegates note. “We were traveling around in a bus, and after a five-hour trip to one of the plants, we discussed what problems there must be in containers of metal getting to a facility on these roads,” Alpert says. As the trip photographer, he sat at the front of the bus, where he witnessed the unimaginable traffic, sheep and cows alongside and on the road, and “complete disregard for any rules of the road,” he says. “We were all amazed that we didn’t see acci- dents all day long.” Even on new highways, there were places where the bus had to slow down to navigate over potholes. A mile from one facility—a foundry that Mission participant Alan Alpert (top) tries his hand at sorting nonferrous metals appeared to produce manhole covers at an Indian scrap operation. Above, two workers use poles to break apart bales used by several major U.S. metropoli- of scrap. Below, aluminum scrap is transformed into ingots at Sunland Metal & tan areas—the road became too narrow Recycling Industries in Sylvassa, north of Mumbai. for the bus, so the delegates walked or rode in rickshaws to reach it. Another day, a man with an ox cart blocked the road and demanded pay- ment before he would let the bus pass. The bus driver negotiated a price of 100 rupees, or about US$2.25. Visits to the shipping container terminals revealed further concerns. Snyder says he found the port and inspection process baffling. Workers unload containers by hand for inspec- tion and then reload them by hand before sending them to their ultimate destination. The goal of this laborious process is to prevent munitions smug- gling and terrorist attacks, but it has the effect of slowing shipping to a trickle. Think about an airport secu- rity line dispute over impermissible

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items, then multiply that level of scrutiny by all the goods coming into a port of entry. At the terminals, “you • Improve productivity can see that everything that came out • Positive alloy grade identification of the container might not go back instantly into the container, because [many] containers are unloaded simultane- • Precise chemical analysis from trace ously,” Snyder says. That raises the to 100% concentrations in virtually risk of shipment contamination and any alloy material weight discrepancies. The shipping ports are not always • Nondestructive - sealed against near the factories, but the rivers are moisture and dust not always deep enough to handle containers, nor can all the roads. This means that shipments are often split up and loaded into different vehicles to reach their destination, creating another potential exposure to loss and contamination. To further complicate matters, Snyder notes that few Indian companies use dump trucks. Instead, trucks travel with five or six workers who load and unload them by hand. NEW!! on It’s cheap, given Indian wage rates, but He-purge opti ent provides true non- it’s not efficient. light elem destructive The infrastructure problems are analysis of Mg,Si,PandAl not insurmountable, though. Jesse NITON Analyzers Alexandra, owner of A&W Iron & Billerica, MA USA Metal Inc. (Kewaskum, Wis.), notes 800-875-1578 +1 978-670-7460 that despite the Taj Mahal’s remote Email: niton@ Sales & Service Worldwide location—about 175 miles south of thermofisher.com www.thermo.com/niton Delhi, which is about a four- to five- hour trip on surface roads—40,000 visitors make it there each day. “Somehow, they get everyone in and out,” he says. “It’s unbelievable.” Part of Thermo Fisher Scientific The low cost of doing business in India sadly seems to come at the expense of the country’s environment and the safety of its workers, the dele- gates say. “To me, there were more environmental concerns than even , and I don’t know what the country is going to do to fix that,” Goodman says. Snyder says he was stunned to visit plants and see workers carrying around ladles of hot metal to pour into molds for manhole covers while wear- ing nothing but sandals and dhotis, the traditional Indian loincloths. Only one facility on the mission’s itinerary had workers wearing closed-toe shoes, www.scrap.org MARCH/APRIL 2007 _ Scrap _ 121 Past ISRI Chair Joel Denbo (left) has his palm read at one of the mission’s dinner functions. Below, ISRI President Robin overalls, and hard hats, but “we could Wiener (left) and other mission see it was a dog-and-pony show,” participants take in the sights Snyder says. “The shoes had never and give their digital cameras been worn before.” a workout at a building on the Still, he acknowledges that jobs in Taj Mahal grounds. metal-processing facilities were proba- bly better than other alternatives available to these workers, which is evidence of progress in the country. Other plants, in contrast, were as good as anything in the United States or Europe. “We saw a stainless mill that was putting in a brand-new, state-of-the-art AOD vessel. That was impressive,” says Phillip Heston, vice president of Miller Compressing Co. (Milwaukee). “The Rico Auto plant was incredible” as well, he says. It needed few supervisors because the production-line workers are all college- educated mechanical engineers who do their own reporting and quality-control work. “The commitment to education really is an advantage the country has,” he says.

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122 _ Scrap _ MARCH/APRIL 2007 www.scrap.org BUSINESS PRACTICES To learn about the cultural norms and rules and regulations of doing busi- ness in India, ISRI’s delegates met with representatives of the U.S. State Depart ment, U.S. Commercial Service, and India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade. These meetings also gave the dele- gates the chance to point out prob- lems and suggest improvements that would make it easier for U.S. com- panies to do business there. “It’s ground-cutting time. It’s planting the seeds,” Snyder says of his goals for such meetings. “We made an impression.” In general, they learned that Indian business etiquette is similar to A worker inserts a lance into a furnace at the Kolkata-based foundry operations of American practices. “It’s a Western R.B. Agarwalla & Co., which imports and consumes ferrous scrap to manufacture culture because it was a British iron castings. colony,” Goodman explains, so basic niceties like shaking hands are the same as here. Snyder says he was expecting to see the caste system play CLEVELAND CORPORATION RACINE METALS LLC Zion, IL INDUSTRIAL SERVICE Specializing in Combination Loads of Ferrous and ❚ Scrap Steel Nonferrous scrap ❚ Nonferrous Metals ❚ Waste Paper Servicing the steel and foundry ❚ Plastics industry with quality furnace ready alloys. Our combined services also include document destruction and wood recycling. WHY PAY TO RECYCLE! 1505 High Street Racine, WI Nationwide 262.633.7200 800.281.3464 ext. 12

124 _ Scrap _ MARCH/APRIL 2007 www.scrap.org a bigger role in business, but “it’s not as prevalent as it used to be. Times have changed.” One significant difference the dele- gates noticed was the heavy bureau- cracy overlaying even seemingly simple tasks, like transferring money and exchanging . “Indians don’t seem to realize how easy it is to do business in the rest of the world,” Skipsey says. “The amount of profes- sionalism you see is so different from what you see elsewhere.” Heston thinks members of the growing entrepreneur- ial class will demand improvements in At Carnation Industries Ltd., business practices, though. near Kolkata, female workers In particular the delegates took (above) clean cast iron issue with the DGFT’s supplier regis- manhole covers that the firm tration requirements, which are tak- manufactures for clients ing effect this year. “Some of the around the world, including licensing requirements are not con- U.S. municipalities such as ducive to how we do business” in Chula Vista, Calif. (right). the United States, Snyder says. “They wanted audited financial statements, and not everyone here has them.” The

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126 _ Scrap _ MARCH/APRIL 2007 www.scrap.org delegates explained to the govern- using the Jindal name—and that’s ment ministers that that request alone exactly what Skipsey saw. “Traders Cutting Torch Systems would put off many smaller American will throw names on their business companies that are not interested in cards to make it seem like they were making their finances public. doing business with someone, and Try us on your Indians’ enthusiasm to do business they weren’t,” he says. toughest jobs. with the delegates was overwhelming Still, “the personal observation and at times. “At each of the three cock- participation, our camaraderie, and the tail receptions, there were 250 people introductions to the India culture and in line who wanted to talk to each business” were the best part of the one of us,” Snyder says. Delegates trip, Strelitz says. quickly discovered that companies were not always what they seemed. THE OUTLOOK FOR INDIA “The names can be misleading,” Inevitably people want to compare Skipsey says. For example, the tour India to ’s foremost scrap power- visited one plant that belongs to house, China. “You can’t say that India Jindal Stainless Steel, a large com- is the next China,” Goodman says. pany that generates US$780 million “That’s unfair to both countries. One of 20 layers of rusted checker in annual revenues and operates three the reasons that China has been able to plate with air gaps, 7-inch cut. plants in India and one in Indonesia do what it’s done is the Communist producing precision strips, blade ,” which can focus enor- l 2 gals. gasoline = steel, and coin blanks. The company mous state resources on a particular 250 cu.ft. acetylene is named for its founder, O.P. Jindal, industry or problem. but Indian law does not prevent In contrast, India is the world’s l 30% less O2 use other, unrelated companies from largest multiparty , with all than propane l cuts faster, even through rust, dirt and air gaps

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128 _ Scrap _ MARCH/APRIL 2007 www.scrap.org the messiness that entails. The popula- tion is much less homogenous than China’s, with practitioners of four major religions—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Sikh. Further, “the printed money has 15 different languages on it,” Goodman notes, making language alone a significant barrier to unified action. The delegates’ consensus is that India is a fascinating place, but it’s not yet a great market for most ISRI mem- bers. “They are definitely years away from competing with some of the other emerging markets,” Skipsey says. “Everyone is fascinated with the coun- try, and someday there may be opportu- nities. The country is definitely grow- ing.” The country might make faster inroads with European scrap compa- nies, he says, because of its location and historic ties to the United Kingdom. Snyder agrees that India is likely to be a good market at some point, but not now. “They are looking for materials, but our domestic prices are higher than ALWAYS Life-Saving Power Re-Engineered BUYING for the Rigors of Industry

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Ann C. Logue is a writer based in Chicago. www.stp.it

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