Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
November 30, 2016
NLMK USA has gotten the go-ahead on a new walking beam furnace for the Pennsylvania plant. Some pre-construction has already begun. James Baker, Jr. told us in an email, “We will be installing a walking beam furnace in Farrell. We have already started on initial site prep with target completion date of September 2018. There will be no negative impact on production thru the entire project, we have engineered this so as to be seamless to our customers. We will achieve significant improvements in quality, energy efficiently, emissions and scheduling from the new furnace.”
We have 3 seats left for our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop which will be held in Huntsville, AL on January 24-25, 2017 with a tour of the Nucor Decatur mini-mill. Come join us in learning about the steel making process (EAF and Blast/BOF), how qualities of steel are made and how the market works. You can find information on our website or by contacting our office at 800-432-3475.
We intend on conducting four Steel 101 workshops during calendar year 2017.
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
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
I’m trying to make sure this is not a TL;DR Final Thoughts. As a journalism school professor once told me, ‘No one but your mom reads more than 1,000 words.’ Also, as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand as well. With that in mind, below are a couple of charts that I think go a long way toward explaining how prices and lead times have been relatively stable despite concerns about demand.
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines for the world writ large – an expanding war in the Middle East, another potentially catastrophic hurricane – and not much going on in the world of steel prices. “Call me Stevie Wonder, I see nothing.” That’s how one service center executive described the current sheet market. There seems to be almost a competition among some of our Community Chat guests and contributors to outdo each other in flowery ways to say, “