Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 20, 2015
A quick reminder that this weekend is Memorial Day Weekend and Steel Market Update will not publish our Sunday evening issue. The next time we will publish will be on Tuesday evening (unless something happens which warrants your immediate attention). For those of you in the United States enjoy your Memorial Day Holiday Weekend with friends and family.
We had a great Steel 101 workshop in Indiana earlier this week. I want to take a moment to thank all of the employees of NLMK in Portage, Indiana for opening up the mill to our group and providing an exceptional mill tour learning experience. I want to thank Robert Miller, James Banker, Jr. and Beth Henry for their assistance in making the tour of the Portage, IN mini-mill possible. We look forward to working with NLMK USA again in the future.
Every mill tour our Steel 101 workshop goes on is special and each mill has its own character. Going through a working steel making facility is always a bit about fire and brimstone as both an integrated steel mill and mini-mills use a tremendous amount of energy to take “dirt” or scrap down to molten pig iron (integrated mill) or steel.
Our next Steel 101 workshop will be in the Davenport, Iowa area and will include a tour of the SSAB mini-mill. This will be the first time we will have visited the Iowa mill (we did visit the SSAB Mobile facility a little more than a year ago). The SSAB mill melts scrap in an EAF and rolls plate products.
The dates on our next Steel 101 workshop are October 6 & 7 and more details and registration will be available online soon. Come join us in Iowa!
Speaking of joining us, we are putting together what should be the best steel conference this year. We have a tremendous group of speakers: Dan DiMicco (author & retired CEO of Nucor), Kevin Dempsey (AISI), Timna Tanners (Bank of America), Dr. Chris Kuehl (Armada Corporate Intelligence), Dr. Alan Beaulieu (Institute for Trend Research) and many, many more. Those that attended our first 2 day conference this past year were not disappointed and the goal of ours is to exceed the previous year as well as expectations. Come join us in Atlanta, Georgia on September 1 & 2, 2015 (the day after the USW contracts expire at USS and ArcelorMittal). The location is perfect for those coming into ATL from out of town. The Georgia International Convention Center (www.GICC.com) is located right next to the Atlanta airport and is accessible by free light rail from the terminal (as is the host hotel).
Registration and details about the conference are on our website. Click here or go to: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com for more information or, call our office: 800-432-3475.
Our office will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us 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!