[TheForge] Metal Prices!

[Jerry Smith]

John,

I live in steel valley and almost no steel is produced here any more. Many of the companies in the states are owned by foreign companies and those companies are building new mill in Mexico to produce steel for the Mexican auto manufacturing market. Watch the NHK news on PBS you may find out some interesting things, such as Nippon steel is building a new mill in Mexico. 

China is now producing a record number of I beams and rail road rails at the moment, as well as building new coal fired electrical plants something like 1 or 2 going online every month, all for domestic use. All of these industries take steel and a lot of it.

If China, or Arcelor Mettal or the Russians or many other companies on the planet are producing lots of steel, where are they getting steel to recycle from? I already know the answer.

We hear a lot about the industry in the states and the over all quality of the product, but this is a very large planet in which China and India are growing incredibily fast and those markets need lots of product. 

I could go on and on, but in the states we are own worst enemies and steel production in my area has been rock bottom since the late 60s and early 70s, so people need to look back 40 plus years, not 20 as some data suggests.

Jerry


 



________________________________
From: John Allen <countrymetals at gmail.com>
To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sun, June 20, 2010 7:51:17 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Metal Prices!

US steel is supposedly only to contain a maximum of 25% wrap. China is more
like 80%. I know when I worked in a large steel supply house, the made in
China steel ALWAYS cracked or even broke when we bent it. The made in
America stuff was always nice stuff to work with.

The steel yard sent all of their scrap to a large scrap yard, the biggest
one in NJ and then it got loaded on ship bound for china.

On Jun 18, 2010 11:02 PM, "ries" <ries at riesniemi.com> wrote:

On Jun 18, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Jerry Smith wrote:


Yes I have, but the local scrap yard guys are sell...
Jerry- you sure about that?
The USA, as a whole, makes about half the steel we make from scrap.
Depends on the economy, of course, how much steel we make here in the
USA- before a couple of years ago, when things were booming, we were
making a bit over 100 million tons a year of steel domestically.
Last I heard, these days its more like 80 million tons.
Of those 80 million tons, about half, thats FORTY MILLION TONS of
steel is made right here in the USA from scrap steel.

Nucor likes to keep on hand, at each of its 20 or so mini-mills, about
a million tons of scrap at any given time.

What this means is that our export of scrap to China is a lot less
than the "common wisdom" thinks it is.
In 2009, the best figures I can find indicate we sold about 6 million
tons of scrap to China, the most ever.

So- domestic use of scrap to make new steel-
40 million tons.
export of scrap to China-
6 million tons.

4 times out of 5, your scrap is going to US mills instead of China...

ries






You guys seeing that sort of [extreme] price increases?



Wes (aka William the Tinker)




---...

Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/




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