Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 29, 2014
We are going to hold off on doing an import analysis other than to say that the latest license data suggests July imports will be approximately the same as June. I will check the latest numbers to see if there are any huge variances compared to what we reported over the past few days. If so, we will produce the updated numbers in Thursday evening’s edition of Steel Market Update.
A comment from one executive of a service center regarding the threat of dumping suits. Essentially he stated that the threat can’t stay hanging over the industry forever. At some point in time the mills either have to file or the industry has to ignore the threat.
Chinese cold rolled exports for the month of July are trending toward a final monthly number around 60,000 net tons. This would be less than what we saw in June (84,965 net tons) and well below the peak for the past twelve months which was 105,236 net tons received during the month of April 2014.
On the other hand Chinese exports of hot dipped galvanized appear to be trending toward a July tonnage level of approximately 85,000 net tons which would be at May 2014 levels which was the 12 month high for China.
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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!