Final Thoughts

For those of you who have been steady readers and members of Steel Market Update you know that the purpose of my Final Thoughts is for me to voice some of my thoughts and opinions on a wide range of topics. I am going to use this forum today to speak about what I am seeing and hearing out there and then I will discuss what “green shoots” I am seeing that I think our readers need to be aware of and think about. As always, I appreciate those of you who wish to become part of the conversation about what ever subject tickles your fancy and I am available at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com should you have questions, comments or suggestions.

I heard a couple of interesting comments recently. One came from an executive at a large service center who reported that US Steel was looking for storage space. At the same time, I heard from second source who reported the number of slabs on the ground at USS Gary was unprecedented. I cannot independently confirm either of these comments at this time. At this moment we should not read too much into these comments but, I find them interesting and would appreciate any information that those of you who do business with USS might have regarding any building (or lack thereof) of inventories on their floors or elsewhere (slabs or finished products). Same goes for those who are dealing with ArcelorMittal on a regular basis – anything unusual happening there?