Steel Strip

Steel workers’ union Community has asked the Environment Agency to hold in trust the carbon credits accrued by Corus’s doomed plant in Redcar until production resumes.
Corus is mothballing its historic steel making operation in Teesside, which threatens the livelihoods of 1,600 workers in one of the country’s worst unemployment blackspots.
The closure has led to [...]

Corus, the steelmaker, was accused on Wednesday of not wanting to sell its Teesside Cast Products plant for competitive reasons.
With jobs of 1,600 at TCP on the line only hours before mothballing starts on Friday, Ray Mallon, Middlesbrough’s elected mayor, claimed a credible consortium interested in buying the plant had received no response from Corus [...]

I came across this rather enlightening article by Christopher Booker writing at the Telegraph.co.uk
The owners of Corus, Tata, have recently announced the closure of the Redcar steel plant, which will have a devastating effect on the workers and the economy of an already deprived area. Whilst the stated reason for the closure of the plant [...]

Salzgitter Chief Executive Wolfgang Leese on Tuesday cautioned against premature optimism in the steel sector, warning that markets were fragile and that a recovery in demand is unlikely to be sustained.
If things go well, demand will continue to be flat, Leese said on the sidelines of an event in Garbsen, near Hanover, Germany.
Signs of recovery [...]

Eurofer, the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries have put out a press release on Economic and Steel Market Outlook 2009-2011
EUROFER director general Gordon Moffat comments: “While the economy probably reached a turning point, the EU steel market will remain stuck in slow motion for the time being”.
Prospects for the EU’s steel using [...]

Your industry news article on a steel business briefing report:-
Steel Business Briefing warns that demand expectations in the steel industry could drop as low as they did in December 2008, at the height of the global financial meltdown. With the downward trend expected to continue at least into early 2010, this is bad news for [...]

We have argued for some time that recent price increases implemented by the steel producers were premature and counterproductive.
Shortages due to greatly reduced inventories which in themselves were the result of poor sales lead to end users and distributors placing new orders in June and July. It was naive in the extreme for the steel [...]

The Times online commenting on a report from the World Steel Association paints a more optimistic picture for the steel industry for 2010.
The long night is almost over for steelmaking, which will enjoy a strong recovery in 2010, the World Steel Association (WSA) predicted yesterday.
Exceptionally strong consumption in China means that demand for the steel [...]

German iron and steel production rose during September, suggesting demand was improving, but was still down sharply from a year earlier as the market remained weakened by the economic downturn.
German mills produced 3.5 million tons (3.17 million metric tons) of steel for the month, an 8 percent increase on the previous month. Year to date [...]

The latest MEPS report echoes fears that we currently have regarding Steel Prices :-
Transaction prices for most steel products increased in September in northern Europe. Producers have restricted their output since the onset of the international financial crisis, while stockists and end-users have reduced their inventories to a minimum. Delivery lead-times have increased as the [...]