Posted on 14/10/2015 in category Ferrous
BIR World Mirror on Ferrous Metals / Quarterly report - October 2015
PRESIDENT'S OPENING REMARKS
by William Schmiedel, Sims Group Global Trade Corporation
Dear colleagues,
My good friend Blake Kelley always used to say two things: “Ferrous scrap clears the market” and “Every discussion about the future of carbon metallics should begin and end with China”. Certainly, we are seeing how prophetic he was. China has continued to export the effects of its excess steel production in the form of semi and finished steel.
China’s finished steel exports in July and August combined for over 19m tonnes but even this figure was eclipsed by the record-breaking 11.3m tonnes shipped out in September alone. In response to this, ferrous scrap prices have dropped in order to compete, reaching levels that we have not seen in 11 years. As we have discussed many times, our industry needs to find new ways to compete. We cannot look to the market to help us but should rather concentrate on the things we can control, like our costs and streamlining our production wherever we can.
I am excited about our meeting in Prague as our speaker, Becky Hites, will have many insights into what we face over the coming years that should benefit us all. Ms Hites is a global steel industry professional and former Wall Street executive who has served as an equity analyst, project finance, mergers and acquisitions investment banker, cost modelling expert, industry trend macro and micro consultant, expert witness and C-level strategic planning consultant. In 2012, she founded Steel-Insights, LLC in order to provide highly-specialised services to clients in the metals, mining and manufacturing industries.
Ms Hites’ presentation will be followed by a panel discussion and interactive Q&A with the audience.