Military Humvees are turned to scrap metal in 2014 at Demil Indiana LLC in Spencer. Staff photo by Jeremy Hogan
The 12,000 pounds of steel frames salvaged from old armored war vehicles stacked 25 feet high at the Demil Indiana LLC site in Spencer may be there for a while. At least until the price of steel comes back up.
Owner Richard Treloar’s business on the eastern edge of Spencer has decommissioned and recycled parts from more than 3,000 early Humvees and aging armored Jeeps since he set up shop in spring 2014 on a five-acre site that formerly was home to the Rostone plant.
He had a contract with the federal Defense Logistics Agency to decommission 4,800 vehicles and bought the Spencer property to carry out the work. Twenty jobs were created.
Early in the process, Treloar was selling the scrap steel for $450 a ton. Times, and profits, were good. But since then, the price of steel has bottomed out. Treloar said selling the steel at the current market price, about $110 a ton, would cause him to lose money.
“I have 6,000 tons of steel here on the ground, and it will sit until the price comes back up,” he said. “It is outside in a pile, frames mostly. The best thing to do is wait it out, wait for the prices to return.”
He blames economic woes and record-low steel prices in China, combined with the increased value of the U.S. dollar, for the low steel price.
“We are living a nightmare,” Treloar said. “Scrap yards are closing all over the country.”
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