Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 5, 2020
There is much to discuss, much to learn…
As trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz lays out in his article/opinion piece this evening, there are no easy solutions to issues built over decades. International manufacturing companies need to review their supply chains to ensure they are not doing business in countries potentially hostile to the United States. Steel mills are balancing supply against demand. Steel buyers are rethinking their sourcing strategies.
During a “normal” economy, the U.S. steel mills do not produce enough steel to satisfy domestic consumption. Even Barry Zekelman admitted that in the SMU Community Chat webinar we held with him a couple of weeks back. There are new mills under construction, but at the same time it appears old mills are going to be phased out.
One question that we will address during the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference is: Will the mills be able to balance supply with true demand, including items that are not being produced in the U.S. right now?
You will hear answers to that question and many more during this year’s SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference. You can register for the event by clicking here.
We produced our SMU Service Center Inventories & Shipments “Flash” report for data providers last week. We will produce our full report for data providers and for Premium members shortly thereafter. If you are a service center and would like to participate (confidential basis), please contact Estelle.Tran@crugroup.com or John Packard at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you would like to upgrade your membership to Premium, please contact Paige Mayhair at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 724-720-1012.
We are conducting one of our SMU flat rolled and plate steel market trends surveys this week. Look for your invitation in your email inbox at 8 AM ET on Monday. If you would like to participate in our surveys, please send a note to: Brett@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!