Steel Strip

US transaction values continue to fall, although the descent is less startling than of late. Some market players feel that even though demand is still far from robust, the bottom may have been reached and prices will settle at this lower level. Mill outages should start to create tighter supply. Moreover, service centre inventories are [...]

Engineering group GKN has said it has cut 2,800 jobs globally since October and may have to shed more because of the slump in the global car industry.
The UK firm, which supplies carmakers including Land Rover and Ford, said it had cut 242 UK positions so far.
GKN said all its car part plants were [...]

THE future of the steel industry in the North East appears to have been secured with the news that the Corus plant on Teesside is to be sold to a new owner.
The Redcar plant will therefore evade the worst of steelmaker Corus’ decision to potentially axe up to 3,500 jobs across the UK.
However the company [...]

I don’t normally do "political" stuff, but on a day when Corus announced painful job cuts in the steel industry which will put 2,500 thousand men out of work, with little prospect of employment, it makes me sick to read of the allegations against Lord Taylor.
For the benefit of overseas readers, Lord Taylor is a [...]

Dutch unions are angry about reorganisation plans at the Anglo-Dutch steelworks company Corus. On Monday, the company announced 3,500 job losses across the globe, 800 of them in the Dutch town of Ijmuiden on the coast. Corus says it hopes the company can avoid compulsory redundancies by retraining employees and introducing outplacement programmes. [...]

Since the leaking of the Corus job cuts yesterday, more information has emerged during today:-
The cuts, which amount to 10% of the company’s UK workforce, is a fresh blow to the manufacturing sector, which has already been hammered by the recession.
The group said the UK job losses form part of 3,500 job cuts worldwide.
Corus, which [...]

Reported by the Express and Star on Friday the 23rd Jan
An historic Black Country steel firm is to axe a third of its staff, workers claimed today.
JB and S Lees, which was established in 1872 in West Bromwich, has announced 42 job losses employees said.
The company in Albion Road makes cold rolled steel strip.

Full story [...]

Steelmaker Corus is set to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide, including more than 2,500 in the UK, the BBC understands.
Corus said it could not comment on rumour or speculation, but the company, like all steelmakers, is facing an unprecedented downturn in demand.
One union official told the BBC Corus would announce its restructuring plans to workers [...]

I am following the reports and forecasts on the situation in the steel industry, and MEP’s latest is here
EU STEEL PRICES BOTTOMING OUT - UPTURN EXPECTED IN THE SPRING
Many steelmakers and manufacturing companies took much longer breaks than usual over the Christmas/New Year holiday period because of the current economic downturn. Indeed, as we [...]

I discovered a new blog today on the steel industry, with an interesting and well thought out article on steel demand forecasts for this year by Tony Taccone. Whilst I am reproducing the full article here I would urge visitors to go over and check out the site, as there is a wealth of interesting [...]