Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 18, 2018
My life these days is consumed by our upcoming SMU Steel Summit Conference, our brand-new Steel 201: Introduction to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels workshop and the next SMU Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop, as well as writing articles and trying to stay on top of the flat rolled and plate steel markets.
We completed our mid-July flat rolled steel market trends analysis and we reported our Sentiment Index, Mill Lead Times and Mill Negotiations results in tonight’s issue. Our Premium level members will get full access to the survey results on Friday in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.
SMU was founded during the month of August 2008, which means we are quickly approaching our 10-year anniversary. Since we started in August, we have heavy renewals for our newsletters during the months of August and September. Now is a good time to review your membership to see if you would like to upgrade to Premium if you are currently an Executive level member. If you have questions, I would love to speak to you. I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
SMU Steel Summit Conference hotel status as of July 19, 2018:
Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway Hotel (next to GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport Renaissance Gateway Hotel (across from Marriott and GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport SpringHill Suites Gateway Hotel (across from GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport Marriott Hotel (1 mile away from GICC, shuttle being provided to GICC) – SMU room block has 60 rooms available at $151 per night. You can use this link or call 888-239-1203 and ask for the Steel Market Update room block. If you have any issues or need help, contact Jill Waldman at Jill@SteelMarketUpdate.com
SMU Events App – we are in the process of loading the attendees currently registered, the updated schedule, initial survey question, information about speakers, information about sponsors and exhibitors, etc. I had hoped to get it out yet this week, but I think this will be moved into sometime mid to late next week. This is a very time-consuming process and one person is doing all the work (thank you Brett).
New registrations during the last 24 hours: MiTek Canada, Honda Trading, United Technologies, Anchor Bay Steel, Conklin Metal Industries, PACO Steel & Engineering, Clopay, Taylor Steel, Algoma, Metal Edge Partners, LISSMAC Corporation, EWaste Fund, Sentuo Steel, See Thru Vistas LLC, USS/Posco, XOM Materials GmbH, T.Co Metals LLC, General Electric Appliances…
We are now 38 days away from the launch of the conference. As of this evening (July 19), we have 764 executives registered. If you have not yet registered, you can still do so on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel-summit or by contacting our office at 772-932-7538. If you have questions, I am available all day on Friday (tomorrow), but I will be out of town most of next week. I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Next event: SMU Steel 201: Introduction to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels – will be conducted for the first time in conjunction with AK Steel. We will be using the AK Steel Research and Innovation Center (RIC) and touring both the RIC and the Middletown fully integrated steel mill. This will be a unique opportunity for anyone, presidents and CEOs, engineers, purchasing and salespeople, claims people and anyone who wants to know more about AHSS and other new steels. How are they made? What issues exist when processing the steels? How does a company work with a steel mill (or service center) in the development of a new part? You can learn more about the program and register by going to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel-201
We are working on hosting another Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop in a mid-November to early-December time frame. More details on this workshop soon.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge my team who have been working hard to get our newsletters published (with quality material), working on the conference, instructors for our workshops, and keeping track of registrations/monies/payables: Diana Packard, Alison LaLonde, Brett Linton, Tim Triplett, Sandy Williams, Peter Wright, Chuck McDaniels, Mario Briccetti, Steve Painter, Jeff LaLonde, as well as Jack Marshall, David Feldstein and Gaurav Chhibbar (futures articles). And a special thank you to Lewis Leibowitz who has been instrumental in keeping us on top of all of the trade issues over the past few years.
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!