Bubble burst: The flurry of post-holiday inquiries on West Coast flat-roll have fizzled, dashing hopes for an immediate recovery. Hot coil prices in the region are pegged at $580 to $600 per ton.
Hope of a recovery in the West Coast flat-rolled steel market have been deflated as a “blip” in buyer interest immediately after the New Year has fallen flat in the face of anemic demand.
Automotive aluminum and magnesium diecaster Contech LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Friday due to unprecedented lows in the North American automotive industry.
The inventory correction in the aluminum can stock sector during much of the fourth quarter is showing signs of abating, market observers said.
Although stainless prices continue to to be weighed down by the economic downturn and low surcharges, few sources say cheap prices are spurring buying. And an uptick may not be in the cards until summer.
The idea of federal bounties to encourage the scrapping and replacement of gas-guzzling cars has reached the stage of a formal bill in Congress, with a pro-bounty group estimating a first-year outlay of $1.1 billion to remove 575,124 vehicles from the nation’s roads.
With vessel loads of more than 80 million tons of goods per year moving through the U.S. side of the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, lock-and-port system, plans are afoot by Essar Steel Algoma Inc. to help significantly boost vessel volumes through the Canadian side of the port.
| Natural gas | -3.60% |
| Aluminum | -1.35% |
| Nickel | -0.99% |
| Zinc | -0.04% |
| Tin | +0.57% |
| Copper | +0.79% |
| Palladium | +1.24% |
| Silver | +4.06% |
| Gold | +4.35% |
| Lead, smelters scrap | +19.78% |
This time last year, industry players were busy wondering whether after three years of fat returns 2008 would reverse course and bloody steel’s bottom line. In the end, 2008 did deliver a bruising—but not before backdropping a dizzying rise to almost euphoric highs in prices. What do the next 12 months hold? Who better to ask than AMM’s 8,000-plus readers up and down the metals supply chain. The following pages share the view from the frontline and in the trenches on the subjects that matter most. Where do you stand?
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