Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
September 25, 2017
There have been a number of master sheets showing projected steel mill maintenance outages for the last couple weeks of September through the end of this calendar year. Steel Market Update (SMU) is following through with our mill sources, as well as steel buyers, to see if we can confirm the outages and if there is any need for buyers to be concerned about receiving their orders as promised. The initial projection has close to one million tons of production being impacted.
From my perspective and experience, I do not see any need for alarm based on what I have seen so far. Most of the flat rolled mills are taking short outages on their rolling equipment (hot strip mill, cold mill, coating lines), which is normal for this time of year. I am not yet sharing the list as I have reached out to a number of the steel mills to see if they will confirm (or correct) what we have seen from steel buyers. We did get a couple of responses prior to going to publication, but there were still a couple left that I wanted to confirm if possible. I will share a flat rolled maintenance list with our readers on Thursday.
I want to welcome our newest member companies to the Steel Market Update family. I want to make sure you are aware that we are an organization that appreciates comments, suggestions and questions. We will do our best to answer or reply to any inquiries as soon as possible. You can send inquiries/questions to: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. That email address goes to a number of people within our company and ensures that it is not overlooked. If you wish to contact me directly, you can do so at: John@SteelMarketupdate.com
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.)