Steel Strip

China’s steel makers will likely be able to use a higher-than-expected rise in iron ore prices as a pretext for hiking their own prices, easing pressure on profit margins in the world’s largest steel industry, analysts said.
China’s top steel maker, Baoshan Iron and Steel, is expected to raise second-quarter prices of its key products, including [...]

The German steel industry and the IG Metall union last night agreed to a 5.2 pct wage increase effective March 1 and valid for 13 months for 85,000 steel workers in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Lower Saxony.
Workers this month will also get a 200 eur one-time payment.
The agreement is considered a guideline [...]

U.S. steelmakers could benefit from new iron ore price hikes because unlike many Asian and European manufacturers they are less dependent on global supplies of the raw material, analysts said on Tuesday.
"Ironically, the higher the increases in global Fe (iron ore) costs, the better off domestic North American steelmakers are," said industry analyst Michelle Applebaum, [...]

Hot rolled steel strip seems to be in short supply here in the UK at the moment. It’s hard to put this down to an excess of demand as manufacturing activity levels are somewhat muted.
At the same time as the steel manufacturers are announcing price increases, they are imposing allocations upon service centres and big [...]