[TheForge] steel costs

[debmiller at fuse.net]

Ralph, 
You are right on the money, sorry for the pun...

The entire economic engine is driven by energuy costs and industrial production. Energy prices are increasing at a horrible rate.
Not only is China buying all the scrap steel, they are buying up as much coal as they can.

In my power plant our coal pricing has gone from $42/ton to over $90/ton!!!
Fuel oil has gone up 50%, and Natural gas has essentially TRIPLED!!

The long term natural gas pricing has averaged around $2/1000 cf, and the January pricing is on the order of $9/1000 cf.

Between steel pricing, coal, fuel oil, natural gas, the economy will is due for another bigger harder fall!! 

Blame the terrorists, blame Bush, blame whomever you want, but the winner next Tuesday is going to be hold a flaming bag of it real soon.

IMHO

Ray Miller
Cincinnati



> 
> From: "Ralph Sproul" <brhlbsmt at mcttelecom.com>
> Date: 2004/10/29 Fri AM 07:09:18 EDT
> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] steel costs
> 
> Fred,  I just returned from the steel yard and paid $ 0.59 per pound.  I
> picked up a ton of steel to replenish the rack so that may be a bit of a
> price break from a walk in on small amounts.
> 
> The steel supplier said to figure 75 cents across the board to be relatively
> safe.  This price is hard to swallow - but it beats the fiasco of last
> February when they wouldn't hold a steel price for 24 hours.  That
> unpredictability was killing fabricators - where they bid a job, then go to
> get the steel and find it had risen 10-45%.........this all had to come out
> of their profits and it really killed many of them last winter.
> 
> I was in the Manadnock region last week where there used to be 10 major
> steel erectors and fabricators last winter.  One was a huge multi million
> dollar a year operation......9 out of 10 are out of business including that
> huge shop.   This is something you don't see on the news, but with a 50%
> rise in fuel, and double in steel.......seems to me we are headed to a real
> bad place relatively soon.  The other sad part is the option of buying used
> steel is now out the window - where China is paying $140-160 per ton for it
> lately.  (I know because the 6,000 ton pile at my local scrap yard all went
> to China over the last four months........and there are no pickings left!)
> 
> The other thing with selling your work is you have to ask for 50% down now -
> just to cover this doubling of steel prices/coal prices/propane prices, etc.
> in your jobs.............and that makes customers very skeptical when the
> standard of doing business has been a third for so many years.
> 
> If you haven't noticed that diesel fuel is now up to $2.28 per
> gallon........and everything moves at least four times by truck before it
> gets to you...........the rise in cost on EVERYTHING is about to become a
> stark reality this winter.  It has also driven firewood prices from $120 per
> cord to $160-200 per cord in this area as all the generating plants are
> going biofuel instead of oil...........so the home heating market in the
> country just got slammed as well.
> 
> Sorry for the sad news Fred, but that's what's happening in the New
> Hampshire area.
> 
> Ralph
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Frederick Faller" <f_faller at yahoo.com>
> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 3:49 PM
> Subject: [TheForge] steel costs
> 
> 
> > Just went to get some mild steel (1/2, 1/4, 3/8 square
> > hot rolled A36). Price is coming in about $.90/ lb. Is
> > this reasonable? I know the price has gone up
> > dramatically, but ...
> >
> > Frederick Faller
> >
> > =====
> > Frederick W. Faller
> > Shiloh Forge Ironware http://users.rcn.com/ffaller/SFI_web.htm
> > www.immerland.com
> >
> >
> >
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