Eunice Ouyang
Editor,SteelOrbis China
A stimulus package estimated at RMB 4 trillion ($570 billion) initiated by Premier Wen Jiabao in 2008 has become an object of public denunciation as it has been a trigger to stimulate a rapid inflation, despite some economists mentioned this package successfully help China avoid a global recession. Through spending such a big package in 10 major areas, More…
By Eric J. Stuart
Vice President, Environment & Energy
Steel Manufacturers Association
Recycled ferrous scrap typically constitutes over 90 percent of the material input of electric arc furnace (EAF) steel producers, aka “minimills.” The recycling of steel scrap in EAFs plays an important role in the conservation of energy. On a per-ton basis, steel produced from melted scrap requires roughly one-third of the energy consumed in the production of steel from iron ore. The recycling of steel scrap also reduces the burden of disposal in landfill facilities and prevents the accumulation of otherwise abandoned steel products.
US minimills are America’s largest recyclers. Steel is recycled five times more than the sum of all other metals combined, including aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, chromium and zinc. The high rate of recyclability of steel in EAFs is one of North America’s best environmental success stories.
Steel is recycled five times more than the sum of all other metals combined, including aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, chromium and zinc.
Minimills are the major growth component of the North American steel industry. While much of the industry has shrunk over the past three decades, the minimill share of US steel production has continued to grow, from 10 percent in the 1960s, to roughly two-thirds of US production today.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. decided to enter the global shipping market. The move made sense; instead of hiring global shipping companies to transport iron ore from Brazil to Chinese steel mills, Vale would construct its own fleet.
Up until then, the most commonly utilized iron ore carriers, Capesize ships, capped out at an approximate capacity of 180,000 tons. Contracting them was not cheap; the average transport time from Brazil to China is about 45 days and the cost to get shipments from point A to point B came at a cost of just over $100,000 per day. Then came 2007: the year Vale’s ship chartering costs increased by nearly 80 percent. It was time for a change, and the Valemax ships were conceptualized to be a world-wide game changer.
Valemax ships were conceptualized to be a world-wide game changer.
Vale’s plan involved the construction of 35 ships that would have the capacity to carry up to 400,000 tons of iron ore per trip, well surpassing the previous record holder, the Berge Stahl, which was rated at 364,000 tons. From a mental imaging perspective, these ships would be nearly four times the length of a football field. They would be big, lean, iron ore transporting machines. More…
On January 29, news broke that Big River Steel, LCC planned to build a new steel mill in Mississippi County, Arkansas. The man behind the new venture is none other than John D. Correnti, the former president and CEO of Nucor Corporation. Expectedly, news of the project drew a myriad of speculation, concerns and excitement.
The man:
John Correnti has decades of experience in the steel industry working for various corporations, but many know him best as the ousted executive of Nucor Corp. From 1991 to 1999, Correnti served as the President of Nucor, and was the steelmaking giant’s CEO from 1996-1999. He joined Nucor in 1980 and became Nucor’s Vice President in 1984 and served as the company’s COO from 1991-1996. A press release from Nucor at the time of Correnti’s departure simply stated: John D. Correnti has resigned as vice chairman, president, chief executive officer and director. However, industry rumblings indicated that Correnti did not resign so much as he was “let go,” and the decision followed a vicious boardroom battle. Forbes later said Correnti believed his departure from Nucor was “an ego-driven power play.”
But Correnti did not simply pack up his bags and go into early retirement—by the end of 1999, he was serving as the CEO and Chairman of Birmingham Steel Corporation, a position he held until December 2002. Then, from 2002-2005, Correnti was the Chairman and CEO of SteelCorr, LLC, and also served as the company’s president. In 2005, Correnti founded SeverCorr, LLC—later to become Severstal Columbus—and served as the company’s president until January 2008, at which point industry sources say he was bought out by Severstal NA. More…
The 68th meeting of IREPAS (International Rebar Exporters and Producers Association) was held in Doha on March 3-5, 2013. There were 76 producer representatives amongst the 210 registered delegates from 60 different countries.
You can watch the first session here:
While US industry lobbyists, associations and unions decry the various means in which traditional blue collar jobs such as manufacturing are increasingly disappearing (or moving, to be more accurate, south of the border or overseas), they have failed to direct their ire at the futuristic job-killer most likely to make “blue collar” an antiquated term in just decades: Robots.
And yet the rise of our mechanical counterparts should be embraced. More…
At the SteelOrbis Fall 2012 Conference and 67th IREPAS Meeting held in Munich, Peter Marcus from World Steel Dynamics gave a speech entitled “Steel: Opportunity in Crisis”.
At the SteelOrbis fall 2012 conference & 67th IREPAS meeting held in Munich on September 30-October 2, Dirk Sauter from Schrott Wetzel GmbH made a presentation enttitled “The German Scrap Market, Today and in Future.”
During the SteelOrbis fall 2012 conference & 67th IREPAS meeting held in Munich on September 30-October 2, Alexander Gordienko from CELSA Group gave a speech entitled “Global Market & Macroeconomics”, analyzing growth forecasts for the global economy and latest trends in long steel production and consumption.
For several weeks, import offer prices of rebar and wire rod to the US from Turkey kept slipping further and further down, while many potential US customers just sat back and waiting for prices to hit bottom. But instead of hitting bottom and staying there long enough for buyers to actually have a chance to buy, Turkish longs prices bounced back up this week before many had an opportunity to book at the lowest prices of the trend. More…
