Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by Tim Triplett
July 10, 2020
John Packard (who is traveling) says his sources are telling him that JSW’s flat roll mill in Mingo Junction, Ohio, may be shutting down (not taking orders) for an unknown amount of time. No confirmation or details yet from the company.
John also reports that Steel Dynamics ran the first coil through the new #3 galvanizing line at its mill in Columbus, Miss., last week. SDI announced in June 2018 that it planned to invest $140 million to add a third galvanizing line at its Columbus Flat Roll Division. The new galvanizing line has an annual coating capability of 400,000 tons.
The coronavirus pandemic has been dominating the headlines since mid-March. Public opinion seems to have vacillated between panic and indifference from one week to the next. Within the steel industry, views have evolved dramatically over the past few months as seen in the charts below.
In May when we asked readers how quickly they thought business would return to pre-COVID levels, this was the distribution of responses to SMU’s market trends questionnaire. The majority saw the virus running its course by the end of July, and almost all by the end of the year. Only 7 percent acknowledged the crisis could extend into next year.
This week’s responses reveal a much more sobering outlook, with 43 percent anticipating the virus will impact their businesses into the first or even second quarter of 2021.
As disconcerting as the pandemic is, especially with reports of surges in various parts of the country this week, we know a lot more about the virus than we did a couple months ago and can now make more informed and realistic plans on how to deal with it.
Andre Marshall, president and founder of Crunch Risk, LLC, will offer his insights on how the coronavirus is impacting the steel futures market as the featured speaker during SMU’s next Community Chat webinar this Wednesday, July 15. The webinar begins at 11 a.m. ET and is free to anyone in the industry. Click here to register.
Registrations continue to grow for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference For more information visit www.SteelMarketUpdate.com and click on the SMU Virtual Steel Summit link. Or to register, click here.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
Tim Triplett, Executive Editor
Tim Triplett
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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!