Let’s say you want to buy a car. You can buy a vehicle with a high mileage for € 5,000 or you can buy a slightly newer vehicle with a lower mileage for € 9,000. Obviously, you have to pay another 4,000 euros for a nicer vehicle, but you have to consider your options in terms of what is most important to you: a more reliable vehicle or a lower overall price, which can cause you to have problems with your car in a few months.
It’s a similar idea when comparing metal prices. Depending on the key quality requirements of your project, sourcing materials such as steel, copper or bronze at the lowest cost can later increase your overall costs.
Finding the lowest material price and finding the lowest material price that suits your specific needs are two very different things. So that brings us to an important question.
WHAT CAUSES THE PRICE OF METALS TO INCREASE AND DECREASE?
Sometimes it seems that market changes in the prices of materials and metals have no reason, but simply put, it is the law of supply and demand. Most of these base metals are the mainstay of global industrial production and construction, which is dwindling and changing with the ever-changing global economy.
Price charts can also control the decisions and behaviors of buyers, traders and investors. As everyone usually studies similar data, their buying and selling decisions can affect prices in a big way. While these prices tend to rise and fall often, what determines these metal prices is a different story.
WHAT DETERMINES METAL PRICES?
The price of the material and the quality of the material are generally closely related. Low steel prices usually mean lower quality and higher steel prices higher quality. There are several ways that price and quality are two halves of the same whole when it comes to metal recovery.
IMPORTANCE OF METALS
We strive for perfection and the priority is to deliver metals as close as possible to their usable condition. Thanks to value-added processes, we are able to avoid most quality issues. For example, bending and burr problems can affect a customer’s ability to meet project specifications. In the end, you invest more money and more time to get these lower quality metals into a usable condition. The solution? Avoid wasting time and money and look for the best material for your job, not the cheapest one.
TOTAL MATERIAL QUALITY
Depending on your project, you may not need your high-end metals to use them. For applications where the material has to be stamped and painted, the final product will not show appearance problems such as stains and surface inconsistencies. In these situations, you can safely go for the lowest material price or even the price of metal on site.
Alternatively, if your application is high speed and tolerance critical, you will need the best of the best. In that case, when you buy at the lowest price of steel or close to the spot price of metal, it will ultimately cost you more in the long run.
