Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 14, 2014
First, our questions posed to U.S. Steel remained unanswered as we reached the end of the day today. The last we heard they were running two blast furnaces at reduced capacities for each at Gary Works. It is not known exactly how many tons per day of pig iron or steel are being produced. Iron ore is (or will be) on its way to Gary Works as time progresses and the ice breakers are able to move convoys through Lake Superior, past Sault Ste Marie and ultimately into Lake Michigan. We have more about the status of the various vessels in another article in this newsletter.
There is no news coming out of Great Lakes at all. By the way, we did hear from one of our contacts at Hamilton Works who confirmed their substrate was coming from Lake Erie and their lines are all very busy. US Steel made the decision to shut down the blast furnace at Hamilton towards the end of last year.
We were briefly sold out of our Steel 101 workshop in Dearborn. Then we received a cancellation so we do have room for one more. You can find details on our website or you can contact our office for information: 800-432-3475.
We have the dates set on our Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution. We will be holding the workshop at the CME Building at 20 South Wacker Drive in Chicago on June 24 & 25th. The workshop will begin at 1 PM on the 24th and will end on the 25th around 2 PM CT. We are working on finishing the details to put on our website as well as registration details. I hope to have these ready by the end of the week. If you have questions or want to get a spot at the head of the line you can do so by contacting our office: 800-432-3475.
Today is Tax Day in the United States. You have until Midnight tonight…
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update. Without you and your company we would not be paying taxes this evening…
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final thoughts
SMU has heard from some larger buyers who have stepped back into the market to buy at prices that, if not at a bottom, they assess to be close to one. Is it enough to stretch out lead times and send prices upward again? Or do we continue to scrape along the mid-$600s per short ton (st) as we have been doing for most of the last month?
Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had some insightful things to say today about the steel market and about a conference we suspect might be Steel Summit.
Final thoughts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you add in some commentary from respected peers in the steel industry to those pictures, that may shoot you up to five thousand words, at least. In that spirit, we’ve added some snapshots from our market survey this week, along with some comments from market participants.
Final thoughts
I thought we’d have more clarity this week on Section 232, Mexico, and a potential carve-out for steel melted and poured in Brazil. As of right now, the only official comment I have is from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).
Final thoughts
There are just 40 days left until the 2024 SMU Steel Summit gets underway on Aug. 26 at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta. And I’m pleased to announce that it's official now: More than 1,000 people have registered to at attend! Another big development: The desktop version of the networking app for the event has officially launched!