Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
February 14, 2020
We will begin our mid-February flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis at 8 a.m. on Monday. Currently we are inviting approximately 560 individuals to participate in the market questionnaire, which takes about 4-8 minutes to complete. If you receive an invitation, please take a few minutes to provide your insights as they are truly appreciated and provide important data for us regarding market sentiment, demand, inventories, price negotiations, steel prices and more. If you would like to be added to the invitation list, please contact us at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com
On Thursday, we shared an overview of the 2020 SMU Steel Summit Conference agenda. If you did not see Thursday evening’s issue of Steel Market Update, you can find the agenda on our website. We also published some of the “keys” regarding this our 10th SMU Steel Summit Conference. Those were also published in Thursday’s newsletter and you can find them on our blog on our website.
As you can see by our agenda, we have an exceptional program covering market forecasts, price forecasts, global and North American economic forecasts, conversations with steel mill CEOs, a steel buyers’ perspective panel, hedging workshop, AI workshop, trade panel, mill costing and how the mills need to deal with CO2 emissions, how to attract and maintain young people into your company, what to make of the political landscape and how it will affect you and the economy, and more…
We are now over 200 registrations and counting… only 1,000 to go. You can register by clicking here or by going to the website address www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit.
We have a limited number of sponsorship slots for the SMU Steel Summit Conference available. If you would like your name associated with he largest flat rolled and plate steel conference, one that attracts close to 1,200 executives (most being decision makers) from manufacturing, distribution, steel mills, trading companies, toll processors and companies that supply products to those industries, please contact Jill Waldman at 303-570-6570 or by email: Jill@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Jill can also assist you if you would like to exhibit your company’s products. We do have a number of spots left for exhibitors as we have doubled the amount of exhibition space this year.
Our SMU Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop which will be held on March 31 through April 1, 2020, in Merrillville, Ind., is about one-half full. We will tour the NLMK Portage steel mill as part of the steel making portion of the instruction. NLMK is a “mini” mill, which means they produce steel by melting ferrous scrap using an electric arc furnace. There is no better way to remember the classroom instruction in the morning than seeing a charge of an EAF in the afternoon. You can register for the conference by clicking here or by going to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel101
I will be in my office all this week. I begin traveling again on March 27.
If you are looking to renew, upgrade or add more people to your existing SMU membership, or if you are new to Steel Market Update and would like information about Executive and Premium subscription options, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email: Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com
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!