Steel Production Slumps in January....as if we didn't know!!

[HiTechMike]

Here is an article about the slump in the steel market.

World steel production slumps in January - RT - Recycling Today

[bigburtchino]

I subscribe to Recycling Today and had already read that article, but thank you for sharing it with everyone. articles numbers should be no surprise to most of us scrappers, as there has been a down turn in steel for months. There is some interesting economic/political statistics buried in those numbers. The southern European countries are in trouble, as indicated by their double digit decline in steel production for the last one year period. The fact that Russia had a increase in steel production of 6% and Ukraine had a decline of 25%+, indicates the "squeeze play", that is taking place as the rest of the world sees "No Evil"!

[dave]

Seems a bit disproportionate to the drop in scrap prices.

[AdmiralAluminum]

Seems a bit disproportionate to the drop in scrap prices.

I thought the same thing when I read it. Some even went up for January. Did they mine more ore this past year? I wonder if this will affect anything...

Biggest steel breakthrough in decades | MINING.com

[unknownk]

How long is the span between getting that article written and published? How long is the average time between scrap to finished product (weeks or months)? Just wondering what the lag period is between uptake in demand at the steel mill to a price jump in scrap.

[hobo finds]

Do you think that the backlog of containers at the West coast ports added fuel to the fire for low steel prices? If no ships get empty then no ships can fill back up with steel and other scrap metal to take back...

[bigburtchino]

Defiantly the west coast harbor problems effected scrap prices. Same magazine had a article about just that subject, how much is hard to say as there is more than one factor effecting scrap prices. A strong US dollar and the unpredictable economy of China being just two of many factors that effect scrap metal markets.