The excitement is building here at Steel Market Update as our educational programs are being well attended and well received. We have a number of programs which will fit the interests of many, if not all of our readers, as we work with our experienced instructors to provide quality content, instruction and great networking opportunities for those involved in the flat rolled steel industry.

We have been developing a relationship with the CME Group as we strive to educate the steel industry about the Hot Rolled Futures markets as well as other financial instruments to assist those companies who have a need/desire to Hedge Price Risk. The CME has told us they were very pleased with the workshop Andre Marshall (Crunch Risk, LLC) and I conducted at the Chicago Board of Trade and they are working with us to expand our reach and work with us in an effort to have a continuously improving program based on the efforts of many parties.

Steel Market Update and Andre Marshall will be working with the CME Group on two more Hedging Price Risk programs. One will be held on September 29, 2011 at the Chicago Board of Trade building in downtown Chicago and will include a tour of the CME trading floor which many of you may have seen on CNBC and other financial stations throughout the day. Registration is open for this program and we do limit the number of attendees in order to maximize the experience (both learning experience and networking).

SMU and Andre Marshall will again be working with the CME Group and we will conduct a second workshop this Fall this time in New York City at the NYMEX. The tentative date for this workshop is Wednesday, November 2, 2011 and we should be able to begin registration for this program in approximately one week to ten days from now.

Steel Market Update is working out the final details for our next Steel 101: An Introduction to the Making & Rolling of Steel which will be held in late October in Dearborn, Michigan. The next Steel 101 workshop will be the first time SMU has worked with a fully integrated mill: Severstal Dearborn and those attending will have an option of touring the Severstal automotive mill. Space will be limited as Severstal cannot handle extremely large groups. Registration and more information will be placed on our website late next week.

In what we are viewing as an exciting opportunity, Steel Market Update will be conducting a shortened and tailored version of our Steel 101 workshop for the Air Distribution Institute (ADI) at their Fall conference in Chicago. The workshop will consist of two of the Steel 101 instructors and myself as we address not only steelmaking questions but also quality and commercial considerations of interest to the membership. We are very excited to develop this program and we welcome other industry groups who may have interests in using our services tailored to your needs. If you would like more information you can contact me directly at 800-432-3475 (706-216-5440) or by email at: john@SteelMarketUpdate.com

It does not end there.

We are working with one domestic steel mill to assist in either the development of their own Steel 101 program or to utilize our services in cooperation with their own people in order to provide a separate view of the steelmaking and perhaps more importantly a look at the steelmaking/commercial/customer relationship which makes for a solid company foundation. These discussions are just beginning and we are excited to work with the domestic steel mills. Remember, all of the Steel 101 instructors spend a good portion of their careers (if not their entire career) working within the steel mill segment of the industry.

On Monday, October 10, 2011 – Steel Market Update in conjunction with METALCON – will conduct our 2nd Annual “Construction & Steel Summit” at the World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. We have expanded the program this year with more speakers; one of our moderators will be Joe Innace – Global Editorial Director for Platts Steel Markets Daily/Steel Business Briefing, and we have a few new mills joining us this year: Nucor, Severstal and CSN. We encourage you to go to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events and click on the “Construction & Steel Summit” drop down tab to learn more about our program.

Registration for this year’s Construction & Steel Summit conference will be through the METALCON website. Registration to attend METALCON is Free – however there is a fee for our program of $300 for non-SMU members and $250 for those of you whose company is an subscriber to Steel Market Update. The SMU conference is known as Special Program #2 or SP2 as you negotiate the METALCON registration pages. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to give any of us here in our office a call: 800-432-3475 or drop us an email: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com and we will assist in resolving any issues. If you wish to receive and invoice contact Diana in our office – Diana@SteelMarketUpdate.com

As you can see we have a pretty busy Fall program planned for those of you who would either like to learn more about the industry, enjoy a quality steel program at a reasonable cost and we offer an excellent opportunity to network with those who are actively involved in the steel industry.