Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
October 16, 2015
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis with an invitation to participate in our questionnaire going out at 8 AM on Monday morning. If you receive an invite please take a few minutes to click on the link and complete the questionnaire.
Steel Market Update will be moving our headquarters over the next couple of weeks. We anticipate being set up and operating out of our new offices in Hobe Sound, Florida by November 1st. We do not expect any issues with any of our publications, workshops, conferences or our website as we make the transition further south. We will be in our Georgia offices all this week and I am not scheduled to travel anywhere this week so I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com should you have any questions or just want to chat.
My next speaking engagement is at the Cowen & Company conference which will be held in New York City on November 10th and 11th. Then I will be speaking at the Steel Meeting at the HARDI convention which will be in Orlando, Florida on December 5-8th.
Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop will be held in Starkville, Mississippi on January 19-20, 2016 and will include a tour of the SDI Columbus steel mill. Registration is open for the January program. If you have any questions please contact us in our office: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 800-432-3475.
In March we will host our first Leadership Conference at PGA National Golf Club & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The dates are March 7-9th and more details will be coming out soon.
The dates for next year’s Steel Summit Conference will be August 30-31, 2016 and it will be in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark your calendars now as we are expecting another great crowd of steel people.
Early reports are saying ferrous scrap prices will move sideways to slightly lower ($0-$20) once we get into November. October prices were down $50 to $60 per gross ton.
We have three steel plants who are either in the process of being shut down (Fairfield except for coating line) or have received WARN notices: USS Granite City and AK Steel Ashland. The Granite City and Ashland plants are not for sure yet. US Steel gave the Granite City WARN notices earlier this year and then did not follow through on them. Restriction of supply is one possible way of getting prices to reverse direction. We will continue to watch the developments as they occur.
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!