Final Thoughts

June 11, 2014

If you are in any way involved with analyzing risk within your company I have two suggestions: 1) Sign up for the Armada Executive Intelligence Brief and, 2) Come to our Steel Summit Conference in September when Dr. Chris Kuehl, one of the Managing Directors and founders of Armada Corporate Intelligence, will address our conference.

In this afternoon’s e-newsletter, Armada pointed out that something very subtle has happened which has Washington, D.C. on edge. Turkey has asked for an emergency meeting of NATO (not the United Nations) due to the deteriorating situation in Iraq to their south. “Turkey went to NATO because it knows that NATO will act in the best interests of the associated group of allied nations…But, it now places the US and NATO allies in a difficult position, and reduces our political stance on Russia’s involvement in Ukraine if we do indeed use outside resources to aid the Iraqi Government….” They went on to point out that if there is any interruption in the supplies of oil coming from Iraq analysts believe the price of gasoline would jump to $4 per gallon (higher in California). Higher gas prices equate to lower consumer spending. The Armada report goes into a great deal of background and detail regarding the world and domestic economic situation. We are looking forward to Dr. Kuehl keynote presentation on September 3, 2014.

We are holding back announcing a couple of our panels as we are looking to get at the subject most being talked about as the summer ends. We are canvassing our readers – both members and those who read our website – and we will be putting a new poll on the front of our website asking for your opinion as to what program you would like to see that has not already been announced.

We had a discussion with John Eckstein this morning regarding building a “scab” in a blast furnace. I won’t go into specifics but, if you hear a mill talking about “scabs” this is what I have learned, “Building a scab on the interior wall is a dangerous proposition. What happens to that scab when the furnace gets back to the run rate…scabs are not a good thing to have. On the side wall, it can’t be controlled. At some point that scab can and will fall.” That would create more problems according to one of our Steel 101 metallurgists.

Speaking of Steel 101 our next workshop will be in Fort Wayne, Indiana in early October. We will be touring Steel Dynamics (SDI). We will have exact dates and details on our website probably in about a week.

We still have a couple of spots left open for our new Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution workshop which will be in Chicago on June 24 & 25, 2014. Details are on our website or you are welcome to give us a call: 800-432-3475.

As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, Publisher