Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Written by John Packard


On a personal note I want to wish Joel Mazur much success in his new position as President of CENTRIA. For those of you who do not know this, Joel Mazur was president of Winner Steel while I was still an agent for the steel mill (Winner Steel is now called Sharon Coatings and is part of the NLMK USA group).

Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals workshop will be held in Canada in early June. We have just received confirmation from ArcelorMittal Dofasco that our group is welcome to tour their fully integrated steel mill. Our workshop will be headquartered at a local Hamilton, Ontario, Canada hotel. We will advise the exact dates in early June for the two day workshop once the mill has advised us of their maintenance schedule. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is located across the border from Buffalo, New York. U.S. citizens will need to bring your passports to cross into Canada.

We still have openings in our next Managing Price Risk workshop which will be held in New York City on April 26th. Details can be found on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com or you can contact our office: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com

By the way – has anybody seen spring anywhere…?

Thank you to everyone who completed our steel survey.  Next one will begin on April 1st (no kidding).

As always we truly appreciate your business – thank you.

Latest in Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

As Wolfe Research’s Timna Tanner put it in her opening talk at Tampa on Monday afternoon, we’re living in a world of “Trumplications” now. That probably means – at least in the short term – higher scrap costs, lower imports from countries hit with or threated tariffs, and higher steel prices. SMU data reflects that. Scrap went up in January. More than 75% of the respondents to our more recent survey expect scrap to go up again February, maybe by a lot. Lead times, meanwhile, have been ticking upward this month. It started with hot-rolled coil and plate earlier this month. Now we’re seeing coated lead times extending too.