Final Thoughts

I spent a good portion of my day today talking to traders (importers of foreign steel) as well as steel buyers. A number of questions were raised about the amount of foreign steel actually being offered as well as the amount of orders that were actually being placed. From my perspective, I am not seeing a “rush” to buy foreign steel with the possible exception of some specialty light gauge galvanized or Galvalume items where orders were cancelled for whatever reason, thus putting the end user in a bit of a bind.

A service center executive talked about the “multiplier effect” which is when there are multiple quotes out of the same mill from a number of trading companies. In reality there are only “X” amount of tons available (or needed) but it appears there is more tonnage being offered than what is actually real. We are seeing this with offers out of Vietnam and UAE which is probably why we hear about those countries more than others who may only have one or two traders representing their steels. Selective marketing vs. mass marketing. Something to think about when evaluating how much foreign is truly available for the U.S. market.