A Holiday Poem for the Steel Industry

Pricing ought to be stable, wouldn’t that be so grand.

During the fourth quarter, the CRU was dropping, so what did appear?

Increase announcements from steel mills to stop the slide that they fear.

We had a lot of duties imposed as we ended ’16,

Thinking that would slow the coated imports, making them lean.

But the ships they kept coming, none empty, all whole,

With global overcapacity still present, it’s the game of whack-a-mole.

While the prospect of relief from quotas or Section 232 was there,

A lot of speculation on timing caused the market to despair.

Instead of curbing imports, and the domestic order books to pop,

It made folks order more imports as they feared they would stop.

Coking coal was wild as it dropped, soared and then repeated,

While iron ore was fairly stable, the zinc mines were depleted.

Zinc has really spiked and is at a 10-year high,

But I expect more zinc production to start, to help this in time.

Now turning from steel, we now have to watch paint,

While cost components are rising, back to past levels they ain’t.

It used to be easy to just watch oil prices and then TiO2,

Now we have to watch benzene, xylene, propylene, and acetone too.

Another year of uncertainty, as we all try to sort it out,

Makes it tough to manage inventories and cost, of that there is no doubt,

But I think if we all work together and try to see both sides,

We will persevere and prosper as we embark on this wild ride.