Steel Products

Stelco CEO Alan Kestenbaum to Keynote at SMU Steel Summit
Written by John Packard
April 10, 2022
Steel Market Update has added Stelco CEO Alan Kestenbaum to our list of keynote speakers. He will join Cleveland-Cliffs chairman, president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves; Steel Dynamics Inc. president and CEO Mark Millett; and ITR Economics president and principal Dr. Alan Beaulieu as featured speakers at the 2022 SMU Steel Summit Conference.
Steel Summit will be held in Atlanta on August 22-24. This will be the first time Kestenbaum will address a Steel Summit audience.
Kestenbaum is known for being a frank speaker about the industry, as evidenced by his recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he discussed his company’s ability to replace 900,000 tons of Russian pig iron for US EAF producers.
A Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker, Stelco has been in the news often over the last two years. The Hamilton, Ontario-based company in 2020 completed a reline of and upgrades to its blast furnace. That increased hot metal production by 300,000 net tons per year. And Stelco in January 2021 commissioned a pig iron caster with annual capacity of one million tons at its Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke, Ontario.
Stelco supplies approximately 2.5 million tons per year of hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel products. The steelmaker has two facilities: Hamilton Works and Lake Erie Works. The Lake Erie Works was built in 1980 and, according to the company’s website, is the newest greenfield integrated steel plant in North America. Hamilton Works is a finishing facility known for its 470,000 ton per year “Z-Line,” which produces high quality galvanized and galvanneal steels for the automotive, agriculture, and infrastructure industries in Canada and the United States.
More about Alan Kestenbaum, also from Stelco’s website, is below:
“Alan Kestenbaum has extensive investing and operating experience in the natural resources sector as well as a successful track record in turnarounds and restructurings. He currently serves as Executive Chairman and CEO, responsible for our strategic direction and growth initiatives, and previously served as our CEO from July 2017 to February 2019. Mr. Kestenbaum founded Bedrock Industries in 2015, in partnership with Lindsay Goldberg, where he is its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and is responsible for setting the vision, strategy, investment objectives and providing direction to achieve the strategic objectives of the company.
“Mr. Kestenbaum was previously the Executive Chairman and founder of Globe Specialty Metals and Executive Chairman of Ferroglobe PLC (NASDAQ: GSM). Prior to forming Globe Specialty Metals, Mr. Kestenbaum founded Marco International, a leading international metals trader and investor, and led its expansion in North America and around the globe. Prior to founding Marco International, he was employed by Glencore and then Philipp Brothers. In 2019 he became a minority owner and limited partner of the Atlanta Falcons. He has a BA in Economics from Yeshiva University and has been involved in numerous educational and communal boards.”
Kestenbaum will speak at the SMU Steel Summit Conference on Wednesday morning, August 24.
You can find more information about the 2022 SMU Steel Summit Conference on our website: https://events.crugroup.com/smusteelsummit/home

John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products

September energy market update
In this Premium analysis we examine North American oil and natural gas prices, drill rig activity, and crude oil stock levels through September. Trends in energy prices and rig counts serve as leading indicators for oil country tubular goods (OCTG) and line pipe demand.

Market says cutting interest rates will spur stalled domestic plate demand
Market sources say demand for domestic plate refuses to budge despite stagnating prices.

U.S. Steel to halt slab conversion at Granite City Works
U.S. Steel said it plans to reduce slab consumption at its Granite City Works near St. Louis, a company spokesperson said on Monday. The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker will shift the production and processing of steel slabs to its Mon Valley Works near Pittsburgh and its Gary Works near Chicago. Citing a United Steelworkers (USW) union memo, […]

SMU Week in Review: September 1-5
Here are highlights of what’s happened this past week and a few upcoming things to keep an eye on.

HR Futures: Market finds footing on supply-side mechanics
As Labor Day marks the transition into fall, the steel market enters September with a similar sense of change. Supply-side fundamentals are beginning to show signs of restraint: imports are limited, outages loom, and production is capped, setting the stage for a market that feels steady on the surface but still unsettled underneath.