[jsnell]

Are you sure about that "unavailable at almost any price" part? Their initial inputs seem to be be the scraps produced by the local manufacturers in a relatively tiny area over the last few years. If this grade of steel wasn't available, where did all these local manufacturers get a constant supply from? (I.e. there has to be an existing and supplied market, it's not like they're recycling the steel only from the scuttled German battleships in Scapa Flow or something.)

The use cases are quoted as "watchmaking and medical subcontracting", fwiw.

[jseutter]

Yeah, I'm not sure about that unavailable at almost any price part. If you could put in an order for a million tons of steel you would get on the steel manufacturers order list, which is what I was thinking about when I mentioned almost any price. But it sounds like they have been working through their existing material for decades and are only now running out. The material may have last been produced a long time ago so the quantities they need are very small. That 50 tons of scrap may last them for another decade or two.