Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 20, 2018
I spent all day on Wednesday of this week in the Pittsburgh offices of the CRU Group. I was impressed with the people working out of Pittsburgh and was even more impressed with the size and scope of the company here in the United States and across the world. The company indexes all kinds of metals from zinc to aluminum, pig iron, scrap, iron ore to various grades of steel from around the world. CRU maintains cost models on steel production and supports a robust consulting service.
I think those of you who will be attending the SMU Steel Summit Conference this year will have an opportunity to network with a number of the CRU Group team from here in the United States, as well as a number of the management team from London, including the Executive Chairman, Robert Perlman, who will speak with me one-on-one during the last program of the conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Both CRU and SMU will have exhibition booths set up during the conference, so we can address any questions you might have about the various products available from both companies.
I won’t go over my travel plans again, just suffice it to say that 25th of June through the 2nd of July will be quite hectic for both Diana and myself.
Due to the Fourth of July holiday, we will not publish on Tuesday, July 3rd. We will provide our flat rolled and plate price indices on Thursday, July 6th.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
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!