Steel Strip

Willenhall-based steel firm Niagara Lasalle has been taken over by investor Endless in a £27 million deal.
The investor, which specalises in turnarounds, purchased the 300-strong West Midland firm from its US parent company Niagara Corporation.
Niagara Lasalle, which provides hot rolled and bright steel bars in engineering steel grades, had a turnover of more than £60 [...]

 
Demand continues to remain slow, and the steel producers continue to mumble about price increases:
Strip mill market values in several West European countries slipped during the summer and look as if they may continue to drift for some products. Producers are expected to try for some small improvements over the next few weeks as negotiations [...]

I came across this article by Bridget Freas over at the seekingalpa site.
Whilst the article concerns the future of the steelmaking industry from a financial viewpoint, it raises some interesting points with regard to steel pricing.
Historically demand has been the major factor in steel costs with Steelmakers quick to seize opportunities to increase prices [...]

Tata Steel’s European arm Corus on Friday entered into a pact with Thailand-based Sahviriya Steel Industries to sell its Teesside Cast Products plant in the UK for about $500 million.
“Corus UK Ltd and Sahaviriya Steel Industries Public Company Ltd today signed a Memorandum of Understanding which sets out the scope of a potential transaction whereby [...]

Corus has confirmed that unused carbon credits will form part of any deal struck on the sale of its Teesside Cast Products plant; a recent report says the company had one of the highest surpluses of carbon allowances in Europe. The steel maker was among three EU companies left with the most unused carbon credits [...]

Steel firm Corus is to take on 154 new workers in South Yorkshire, and resume apprentice and graduate recruitment, it has been announced.
The latest plans will bring the number of new workers hired by the firm to more than 300 since March, with the Speciality Steels division recruiting trainees for the first time since the [...]

Came across this interesting article on the BBC website today
By Tim Bowler Business reporter, BBC World Service
Are the world’s iron ore mining companies putting the world recovery in jeopardy, by forcing up prices?
Iron ore is a key component in the manufacture of steel, and is used in construction and heavy [...]

The tensile strength of steel can be quoted on a number of imperial and metric scales. The factors below are useful for converting.

One newton per square mm is equal to :-

Metric

bar

10

kilopascal

1000

hectopascal

10000

megapascal

1

millibar

10000

pascal

1000000

kilogram per square centimetre

10.19716

kilogram per square metre

101971.6

newton per square metre

1000000

kilonewton per square metre

1000

meganewton per square metre

1

newton per square centimetre

100

British and U.S. (Imperial system)

thousand pounds [...]

EU STEEL COIL PRODUCERS FACE HIGHER INPUT COSTS AS DEMAND COLLAPSES
Market sentiment has been knocked by the recent economic turmoil and sovereign debt issues in the eurozone. Strip mill product prices are fairly flat this month. Domestic producers are still keen to lift basis values significantly for the third quarter. However, most steel consumers and [...]

Hot on the heels of the recent announcement by ArcelorMittal of possible steel production cutbacks, Bloomberg are reporting discussion of cuts in China:
Chinese steelmakers are likely to cut production in the third quarter because of “weak” demand from auto and appliance makers, according to the nation’s second- biggest mill.
Slower demand may prompt smaller makers to [...]