[TheForge] Price of steel & scrap

Thu Apr 1 18:48:19 2004

That sounds pretty impressive.  Thanks for the info.  Now I wonder how
pragmatic they will be in terms of business vs. politics.  The fact that
they are producing ever greater proportions of the world's steel and the
US ever smaller leaves a paranoid taste in my mouth.  I suppose as long
as we can produce enough for domestic needs there's no need for concern,
but I would be very concerned about being left at the mercy of a nation
like China for most or even all our steel needs.  Seems just another
precarious corner we seem to be painting ourselves into.  ANything that
diminishes our self sufficiency I see as a potentially hazardous 
trap to fall into.

Hey, what's this I've been told about a refinery blowing up in TX?
I don't watch the news anymore so I'm pretty clueless and get 
everything fourth hand.

"David E. Smucker" wrote:
> 
> I can't begin to speak to the quality of all steel produced in China but
> much of it is very good product.  A lot of their steel is going for internal
> use in buildings, rail roads, bridges etc.  A lot also goes into the
> manufacture of products that are exported.  They also sell product, plate
> and sheet, structural shapes etc. some of which is being imported into
> Japan -- and the Japanese are very tough on quality requirements.  (It is
> one of their ways to exclude imports.)
> 
> The Chinese have been buying some of the best in steel mill equipment for
> the last 30 years.  I saw a state of the art hot rolling mill for China on
> the manufactures floor in Japan in 1975.  The equipment has only gotten
> better since then and most of it has come from Germany, Italy, UK and Japan
> since about 1980.  (The USA hasn't made a state of the art rolling mill
> since about 1980).  All of the offshore mill builders were once tied to the
> leading US mill builders -- but the US builders stop working on new
> developments, were happy to live off of licensing fees and then went belly
> up in the 80's.  Meanwhile their "kids" in Germany, Japan, UK etc worked on
> new stuff and took all of the business.  Sad story.
> 
> The Chinese also worked very hard at training technical people in their
> steel industry.  At one point -- about 1989 they had 3000 engineers training
> at one German mill builder that I was working with.  (They had 3000 living
> in Germany for this training.)
> 
> Dave Smucker
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andy Vida" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 1:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Price of steel & scrap
> 
> > Question: is the quality of the steel coming out of China any good, or
> > it is crap?
> >
> > [email protected] wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 12:59  AM, Mike wrote:
> > >
> > > >   Now the Chinese steel industry is ramping
> > > > up fast, producing something like half the world's steel.  FWIW,
> > > > - Mike
> > > >
> > >
> > > Mike, The chart that came with this article said that China's 2003
> > > steel production
> > > was 220.1 million metric tons. Japan is second with 110.5 and USA third
> > > with 90.4.
> > > China's number was a 21.1% increase over 2002. USA was -1.3% over same
> > > period.
> > >
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--
	-Andy V.

	Yo ye pharoahs, let us walk through this barren desert, 
	in search of truth and some pointy boots, 
	and maybe a few snack crackers. 
	OWWWW WEEE baby, you make me wanna walk like a camel.