Final Thoughts
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Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 6, 2016
An executive with one of the larger scrap companies told us that trading finally got under way in the Southeast over the past 24 hours. We were told, “Scrap trading got underway in the Southeastern markets late yesterday and today. While demand remained intact for the most part, bearish sentiment seems to be on the increase. Additional supplies from the East Coast exporters surfaced in the region once again, adding supply and pressuring prices for obsolete grades. There seems to be a growing sense that domestic steel prices may be fading, potentially shortening lead times and diminishing domestic scrap demand. Softening pig iron, DRI, and HBI prices into NOLA is also expected to keep prime prices in check heading into August.”
This same executive pointed out that the weakness is in the area of long products which use obsolete grades of scrap. The sheet mills, which use prime grades of scrap, have been running “full out” and have helped keep prime grades of scrap from falling over the past couple of months.
We will have more information on scrap trading in Sunday evening’s issue of SMU.
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John Packard, Publisher
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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!