Analysis
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 5, 2016
My opinion is that we will need to watch foreign hot rolled offers this week. There are a couple of countries (including Korea) that were scheduled to come out with new HR pricing this week. Will the final determination ruling by the US Department of Commerce have any impact on prices?
We also will need to watch and see what USS/POSCO does as they deal with their potential supply issues. We expect they will be able to find other suppliers and we believe they have been qualifying other mills since the preliminary determinations were reported and it was obvious that POSCO was potentially at risk.
Buyers need to be aware that steel that is imported from those countries where duties are indicated the trading company is on the hook for any revisions on the duties in the future. Any subsequent duty is payable retroactively. The importer of record carries all of the risk.
Something that we are working on: With the status of the U.S. presidential election and the anti-trade rhetoric by both candidates, what happens to the ITC commissioners once a new president takes office? Are these political positions? We hope to have an answer on this shortly and I expect that this could be one of the topics of discussion at this year’s Steel Summit Conference.
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John Packard
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