Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
September 22, 2014
Consolidation may not be over yet. We saw a report this evening out of Minnesota about how Essar Steel Minnesota has failed to secure financing to complete the $1.8 billion taconite pellet facility. The company’s India parent company was so over-leveraged it was put on the top ten watch list by Credit Suisse one year ago, according to a report in the Star Tribune out of Minnesota. Essar is also the parent company of Essar Steel Algoma which recently was able to procure funding for the Canadian steel mill.
We added a couple more people to our Steel 101: Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals workshop in Ft. Wayne, IN in a couple of weeks (October 7 & 8). The workshop will include a tour of the SDI steel mill in Butler, IN. We encourage anyone who has been thinking about attending to register soon as we will close registration late this week. If you have any questions, please contact our offices at 800-432-3475 or info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
The next workshop after Indiana will be in South Carolina in late January and will include a tour of Nucor Berkeley. More details on this workshop will be coming out in the coming days.
I want to take a moment to welcome our newest member companies and let them know that we encourage interaction with our people. If you have a question, comment or suggestion we are here and available. This includes me personally and I can be reached at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 800-432-3475.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final Thoughts
When a mapmaker constructs a map, it’s always to the contours of the land. Or sea. That is, the mapmaker doesn’t say, “Look, these rocks really don’t belong here, so I’m not going to include them in the harbor map.” Uncharted rocks, sink ships (along with loose lips).
Final Thoughts
We had an October surprise here at SMU on Wednesday. I was working from the CRU office in Pittsburgh, and the internet connection briefly went out. As luck would have it, that happened smack in the middle of a live Community Chat webinar. Fortunately, my colleague David Schollaert stepped in, Zekelman Industries CEO Barry Zekelman rolled with the punches – and the show went on. Could there be any more October surprises in store for us and for the steel market?
Final Thoughts
We just wrapped up another Steel 101 workshop, easily the most hands-on industry workshop on steelmaking and market fundamentals, in this humble opinion. Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday, SMU’s Steel 101 was held in Starkville, Miss.
Final Thoughts
Everybody has an opinion about politics these days. More importantly for our readers, though, every business has a bottom line. A popular question in our most recent steel buyers survey asked how uncertainty around the upcoming US presidential election could affect that line.
Final Thoughts
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