Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
October 13, 2014
It was nice to see that US Steel was able to get a contract with their USW Local 1005 at Hamilton Works in Canada. Their contract was set to expire tomorrow (October 15th).
For our Premium level members, we should have the Imports by Product, Port and Country for August on our website by sometime tomorrow afternoon. Last week’s survey power point presentation is already on the website. Late this week, or over the weekend, we anticipate that the MSCI shipment and inventory data will be released and we will see how our last forecast came out and then reproduce a new forecast based on the latest data and how it fits into our model.
As I mentioned in our pricing article at the beginning of this newsletter, I am hearing mixed opinions regarding the ability of the steel mills to hold the current line on pricing. The two tightest regions appear to be the Midwest, Ohio Valley and into portions of the Mid-Atlanta. The weaker areas are the south and southeast due to the proximity to ports and access to foreign steel. One of the steel mills in the south pointed to the influx of foreign steel and predicted that flat rolled MSCI inventories would be 2.5 or 2.6 months, if not this month, soon.
One of our contributing writers and a consultant to the steel industry, Paul Lowrey of Steel Research Associates is working on an extensive look at imports from a slightly different perspective. We hope that Paul will have the article ready for our Thursday evening edition of SMU.
We are also looking at the price of oil and have been asked if oil continues to drop what impact will it have on the steel industry. The answer is if it continues to fall the impact could be quite large as drillers put off drilling new oil and gas wells. We will look into this subject in more depth in the coming days.
A hearty welcome to our newest members both free trials and annual members. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
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!