[TheForge] Re: Metal Prices!

[Mike Spencer]

Jerry Smith wrote:

> 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.

It was only a few years ago that there was a global metallurgical coke
shortage (and concomitant price spike) because China, which had been
exporting coke at unbeatable prices, suddenly decided to keep all their
coke for domestic use.  This was shortly *after* China bought a state of
the art German coking plant, dismantled it and shipped it home.  The
Germans had built the plant and then never run it because the price of
Chinese coke was too low to compete with, even when it was
bulk-shipped half way round the world.

Locally, a well-established fab shop with a fairly sizable capital
investment in plant, has branched out into the scrap metal biz.  Small
potatoes compared to some giant scrap yards or even the bigger ones in
Nova Scotia but it says something about the price of steel (not to
mention the soft metal fab market.)

I'll have to get over there and see if they're scrapping any
power hammers,anvils or other interesting stuff.  Hitherto, all the scrap
yards have been too far away from me to make periodic browsing
economical.

Last time I checked in this area, small bar stock was around $1 a
pound, hollow steel structural shapes around $2, delivery included on
orders over $300.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^