Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 19, 2014
It has been a very busy last 24 hours for Steel Market Update as we try to stay on top of all of the important news items, pricing, conduct our mid-May flat rolled market analysis and work on completing arrangements for our September Steel Conference.
We learned that US Steel Gary Works has all of their blast furnaces in operation. We also learned that USS Great Lakes is on schedule and steelmaking is coming back online. We inquired with ArcelorMittal regarding their C-5 blast furnace which, we were told last week, should be coming back online this week. To the best of our knowledge all of the other blast furnaces are, at this moment, operating. ArcelorMittal is expected to take their largest furnace at Indiana Harbor down at the beginning of June for close to two months. That appears to be the only major disruption in supply as far as furnaces are concerned. This too may change but that is what we know at this moment.
I mentioned our September Forecasting and Steel Summit in my opening paragraph. Steel Market Update is working very, very hard to produce an exceptional conference which we hope will be one of the highest quality conferences produced this year. We have expanded the length of the program from three-quarters of one day to two days. We are locating the conference right next to the Atlanta airport at the Georgia International Convention Center and the award winning Mariott located next door. Both are located on the first stop on the free light rail shuttle from the airport. Those living in the Southeast can also rest assured that the facility is easily accessible either by car or by using MARTA to go to the airport and then taking the “other” train to the GICC/Mariott.
I have mentioned a few of the speakers both in this newsletter (check the articles) and in previous articles. We will have more announcements about our program in the coming days.
We are already getting requests for registration and hotel information. We are working on getting the information online with our target date of June 1st to have everything ready for those interested in attending (which we hope is all of you). The dates to put aside are September 3 & 4t2014-05-20h…
A side note – on the bottom left hand side of our Home Page you will find a “poll” which anyone can participate in. No names needed. It is just a way to stay involved and you can find out how everyone who is taking the poll is voting by clicking on the “View” button. One vote within a 24 hour period. So go ahead and stack the deck and vote each and every day….
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
“We’ll always have Paris,” as the famous line in Casablanca goes. And this month, the global steel industry did as well. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steel Committee met in the City of Lights earlier this month. There was also a meeting of the Global Forum addressing excess steel capacity.
Final Thoughts
It’s once again A Tale of Two Cities in the steel market. Some are almost euphoric about Trump’s victory. Others, some rather bearish, are more focused on the day-to-day market between now and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Final Thoughts
One of the perhaps unintentional perks of being a trade journalist is the opportunity to travel and cover an array of industry conferences and events. Some I've attended have been at fun locations, like Palm Springs and Tampa, Fla. Others have been in more practical locations, like SMU’s Steel Summit in Atlanta and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) meetings in Washington, D.C.
Final Thoughts
t this point in the game I think what we can say about Nippon Steel’s proposed buy of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel is that it will go through, it won’t go through, or the outcome will be something new and completely unexpected. Then again, I’m probably still missing a few options.
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump continues to send shockwaves through the political establishment (again). And steel markets and ferrous scrap markets continue to be, well, anything but shocking. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." (I thought the quote might have been Yankees catcher Yogi Berra in 1949. Google taught me something new today.)