Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 26, 2018
One quick note to those who may be thinking about attending our Steel 101 workshop in Memphis. We only have a few spots left and I expect the workshop will be sold out within the next week or so. If you have an interest in attending and you have questions about the workshop, please send them to info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you know you are ready to register, you can do so online: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel101 or you can go through our office at 772-932-7538.
I want to take a moment to send out congratulations to two of my long-time friends and previous co-workers who have, or are about to, retire from the steel industry in the coming days.
Deb Banic of NLMK USA and I worked together for 10 years when I was an agent for Winner Steel (now NLMK Sharon Coatings). Deb is retiring from NLMK at the end of April.
NLMK put out a note on Deb’s background when they announced her retirement: “Deb originally joined Sharon Steel in 1971 and worked there until October 1992. Her last position at Sharon Steel was as a Statistical Process Control Analyst. Due to the Sharon Steel shutdown, she was able to complete her BS degree at Slippery Rock University, graduating in 1995. She then joined Winner Steel in 1996 as an Inside Sales Representative. She has held the positions of Conversion Manager, Sales and Marketing Manager and Outside Sales Representative with Winner Steel and most recently Regional Sales Manager with NLMK.”
Deb was instrumental to my success at Winner Steel and I am sure her customers were happy to have her as their sales manager. She will be sorely missed by the industry and I wish her and her family nothing but the best in the years to come.
Another long-time friend that goes back to my early days at Pacesetter and Sterling Steel/Duferco – Keith Hanzi has retired. Keith and I worked together at Pacesetter and traveled together to some interesting places. We went to Brazil when we were selling steel to Carrier’s plant there. If you have an opportunity, you need to ask Keith about the first day of the trip (can you say caipirinha?). We also tried to travel to Iowa on a plane with a bunch of turtles. We never made it to Iowa because of an ice storm (the turtles did), and I learned my first lesson about expense reports when I returned from that trip….
Keith was the first person I hired when I left Pacesetter and started a service center operation for Duferco. The service center was called Sterling Steel and over time the Chicago plant that we started together ultimately became the Kloeckner Chicago operation. Keith flourished in purchasing, quality control and customer relationship positions due to the warmth of his personality and his penchant for wanting to find the root cause of problems and then make them go away.
I am sure Kloeckner and the greater steel industry in general will miss Keith and his infectious smile. I wish Keith and his wife Liz all the best in retirement.
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
What's the tea in the steel industry this week? Here's the latest SMU gossip column! Just kidding... kind of. Yes, some of the comments we receive in our weekly flat-rolled market steel buyers' survey are honestly too much to put into print. Some make us laugh. Some make us cringe. Some are cryptic. Most are serious. We appreciate them all. Below are some highlights from our survey results this week. Some of the comments that we can share with you are also included, in italics, in the buyers' own words, with minimal editing on our part.
Final thoughts
Last week we wrote about a brief lull in price movement, labeling it a period of wait and see. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty brief. This week... things are little bit different. Perhaps right now we are more in a period of "hope and pray" or "Here we go, hold on to your hats."
Final thoughts
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)
Final thoughts
Is it just me, or does it seem like the summer doldrums might have arrived a little early? I could be wrong there. It’s possible we could see a jump in prices should buyers need to step back into the market to restock. I’ll be curious to see what service center inventories are when we update those figures on May 15. In the meantime, just about everyone we survey thinks HR prices have peaked or soon will. (See slide 17 in the April 26 survey.) Lead times have flattened out. And some of you tell me that you’re starting to see signs of them pulling back. (We’ll know more when we update our lead time data on Thursday.)
Final thoughts
Everybody has a plan… until they’ve dealt with volatility in the HRC market. While Mike Tyson’s original quote was about getting punched in the mouth, it’s unlikely the ex-champ has gone many pricing rounds with hot-rolled coil.