Kingspan North America announces the hiring of Brad Johnson as Vice President of Sales for the U.S. Johnson joins Kingspan from CENTRIA Architectural Systems, where he served as Executive Vice President of Sales since May 2016.

Construction jobs were added in 41 states between October 2016 and October 2017, while 26 states added construction jobs between September and October, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of Labor Department data. The October jobs data continues a pattern of widespread but uneven growth in industry employment, said AGC.

Construction job growth in Florida and Georgia are a rebound from projects and workers that were displaced by Hurricane Irma, said Chief Economist Ken Simonson. "Similarly, the increase in Texas indicates ongoing recovery from Hurricane Harvey, which hit that state in late August. Aside from those three states, there was no net increase in construction employment from September to October, which could indicate how tight the job market is, rather than a drop-off in demand for workers. "

Nucor Corp. plans to invest $180 million in a full-range merchant bar quality mill at its existing bar steel mill in Bourbonnais, Ill. The MBQ mill, which will take two years to complete, will have an annual capacity of 500,000 tons.

Cleveland Cliffs announced Friday that P. Kelly Tompkins, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, will begin his planned retirement effective Dec. 31, 2017.

Manufacturing in New York State continued to expand in November, but the headline business conditions index of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey fell to 19.4 after reaching a three-year high in October. The November index lost 11 points and dropped more than expected, but solid gains in new orders and shipments indicate still brisk growth in the region. New orders climbed three points to 20.7 and shipments slowed a bit to an index reading of 18.4.

Main Steel, headquartered in Elk Grove Village Ill., has been acquired from by Samuel, Son & Co., Ltd, a Canadian metal manufacturer, processor and distributor. Main Steel is a processor and polisher of stainless steel, aluminum and nickel alloys with processing locations in Atlanta, Elk Grove Village, Harmony, Pa., and Riverside, Calif.

The company will retain the Main Steel name and operate its current toll processing business model. It will be managed independently from the Samuel Service Center group and led by current Main Steel President Paul Patek, Senior Vice President of Commercial Dave Yundt and CFO Beth Szymanski.

Nucor became the first sheet mill to step out and attempt to nudge hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel prices higher. This afternoon (Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017) the Nucor Sheet Group announced a new $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) price increase to be “effective immediately.”

Mill Steel Co. has promoted commercial leader Joe Poot from Vice President of Purchasing to Senior Vice President.

Poot began his career with the carbon flat roll distributor 18 years ago as an assistant controller, and served as business unit controller and purchasing manager before being elevated to shareholder and partner in 2006. Poot has been a driving force behind Mill Steel’s geographic expansion in the last decade to six facilities, including the company’s newest plant in Houston. He will continue to manage all the company’s construction business units.

Stelco Holdings, Inc., closed its initial public offering today, successfully raising $230 million to be used for select capital investments, new product development and early payments to pension trusts.

The 13.5 million shares were offered at a price of $17 per share. As of midday Friday, the stock was trading around $19.50 per share. Bedrock Industries, which acquired Stelco earlier this year, retains about 85 percent ownership in the company. Bedrock has advised the company that it intends to review its investment in Stelco on a continuing basis.

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) just released a new report assessing the nation's infrastructure needs. Entitled, "A Framework for Infrastructure Funding," the report concludes that a federal fuel tax increase is necessary for attaining the large-scale infrastructure program envisioned by the administration. Generating enough revenue through other mechanisms, such as mileage-based user fees and increased tolling, would place undue hardship on system users.

Members of the Congressional Steel Caucus sent a letter to President Trump Tuesday urging him to defend the American steel industry and its workers during his visit to China this week.

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Growth of total construction spending has almost come to a halt, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Department of Commerce construction put in place (CPIP) data.

Last month, we reported that total construction expenditures contracted in the three months through August year over year for the first time since November 2011. Based on revisions included in the September CPIP data, the August contraction reversed direction. Total construction increased by 0.3 percent in August and by 0.2 percent in September on a three-month basis year over year. Since construction is extremely seasonal, the growth or contraction we report in this analysis has had seasonality removed by providing only year-over-year comparisons.

After four months of decline, the Dodge Momentum Index rebounded 13.2 percentage points in October to a reading of 130.9. The Dodge Momentum Index, published by Dodge Data & Analytics, is a monthly measure of the first (or initial) report for nonresidential building projects in planning, which has been shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.

On Monday, SSAB sent a letter to customers advising of the company's intention to raise spot transaction prices by a minimum of $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) effective immediately.

Hurricane recovery may have boosted construction jobs slightly in October, but the Associated General Contractors of America says strong overall conditions prevail in the industry.

Construction employment was at its highest level in nine years last month, adding 11,000 jobs and reducing industry unemployment to 4.5 percent, the lowest rate since 2006.

Construction spending in the private sector in September outpaced public sector investment in infrastructure and other projects, according to an analysis of new government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials urged members of Congress and the Trump administration to include new funding for roads, bridges, clean water and other important infrastructure as part of any new tax reform measure.

China is cracking down on air pollution, which worsens during the winter heating season. Chinese steel producers are feeling the pressure from the government to scale back production in the next few months.

Reuters reports that growth in China’s steel industry fell to a six-month low in October as a government crackdown on winter air pollution sent raw materials prices and new orders downward.

Officials at the Associated General Contractors of America said that despite expansion at construction firms in August, many firms report having a hard time finding qualified workers to hire, particularly for craft positions.

"Construction firms in many parts of the country continue to expand to keep up with demand for their services," said Ken Simonson, the association's chief economist. "Yet construction growth would likely have been even more robust if contractors could find more qualified construction workers to hire."

Market economy status for China is out of the question, according to a 205-page memo from the Commerce Department.

The detailed memorandum, published on Oct. 26, was released just days before President Trump is to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and in close timing with a preliminary AD/CVD determination against China regarding imports of aluminum foil.

In a preliminary ruling on Wednesday, the Commerce Department found that seven countries have sold carbon and alloy steel wire rod in the United States at less than fair value. Subject to antidumping duties ranging from 2 to 148 percent are imports from Italy, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Wire rod imports from the seven countries had a combined value of about $222 million in 2016. The case was filed by Gerdau Ameristeel U.S., Nucor Corp., Keystone Consolidated Industries and Charter Steel.

When Steel Market Update (SMU) began talking to our ferrous scrap sources over the past couple of days, we got a variety of opinions as to where prices will go for the month of November.

From the East Coast we heard sideways was the most likely direction with a little “slightly stronger” for prime grades of scrap (busheling, bundles). The reasons being improved export pricing and seasonally slowing scrap inflows. At the same time, some of the tightening of supply will be offset by “U.S. domestic mill outages and less demand.”

We were told, “I expect flows to continue to slow over the rest of the year, as they normally do, and for demand to improve as steel mills begin to raise prices on the back of improving demand in the coming months.  So, we could see a sideways market in November and a slightly higher market in December. The most recent export sale this past week was $304/MT CIF Turkey. As much as the Turks want to push prices lower due to mediocre demand and a weakening currency, they are going to have a tough time doing so before the end of the year (though the degree of upside from here is a little questionable).  I expect U.S. trading to happen in the later part of next week.”

Two representatives of steel intensive regions will co-chair the Congressional Steel Caucus, Representatives Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Mike Bost (R-IL).

Crawford's 1st Congressional District in Arkansas was a farming region three decades ago when the Caucus was founded. Today, it hosts Nucor-Steel Yamato, Nucor Steel Arkansas, and Big River Steel, making it the second largest steel producing congressional district in the U.S.

ArcelorMittal kicked has off its second annual “Steel Spirit Sweepstakes” contest, giving its USA employees, customers, neighbors, steel enthusiasts and Big Ten sports fans the chance to watch the Big Ten Football Championship Game from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Dec. 2, 2017.

Trucking associations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico issued a joint statement on Monday supporting an updated NAFTA agreement.

The North American truck-transported trade supports tens of thousands of jobs and generates billions in revenue annually, said the statement from the American Trucking Association (ATA), Cámara Nacional del Autotraporte de Carga (CANACAR), and the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).

Construction job creation in September was muted due to the recent hurricanes, said the Associated General Contractors of America in an analysis released by the Labor Department on Friday. Twenty-six states added construction jobs between August and September, while 35 states and the District of Columbia added construction jobs between September 2016 and September 2017. Association officials noted that construction employment in many parts of the country would have been higher if more qualified workers were available.

John Ferriola, chairman, president and CEO of Nucor Corp., has been named vice chairman of the World Steel Association board of directors. Ferriola will serve a one-year term with the Brussels-based trade association.

Late this afternoon, the Nucor Sheet Group sent a written note to customers advising them of a $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) price increase on spot orders of hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel. This follows the announcement by ArcelorMittal USA yesterday, taking spot base prices to $625 per ton on hot rolled and $825 per ton on cold rolled and galvanized steels. Steel Market Update will have more on these price increase announcements and the reaction from steel buyers in Thursday's issue of our Steel Market Update newsletter.

ArcelorMittal USA began advising their customers late on Tuesday (October 17, 2017) of their intention to raise flat rolled steel base prices. In an internal memo sent to the ArcelorMittal commercial team the mill advised, “All new opportunities for hot rolled, cold rolled and coated sheet products that require delivery in the 4th Quarter of 2017 should be specifically inquired for production availability before any formal or verbal acceptance of an order takes place.”

The mill then went on and advised that the following “minimum” base prices on sheet products are to be in effect “immediately”:

Prior to the ArcelorMittal USA price increase announcement, Steel Market Update analysis of steel prices found flat rolled steel prices continuing their slow slog south (prices are moving lower). The pace has not accelerated, but there are questions as to whether some of the steel mills are cutting "quiet" deals in order to fill their fourth-quarter order book without giving the steel away.

One service center put it to us this way: "If you have index contracts, those prices aren’t that attractive, so my guess is some cheaper pricing must be out there to motivate anyone wanting to buy big volume right now. My guess is in the next two weeks there will be a lot of 'quiet deals' being done on volume to get December books full. For those who have learned that they can live comfortably with 2 months of inventory, even a so-called 'deal' right now isn’t that attractive, considering we could be entering a phase of lower input cost for an extended period."

We will have to wait and see if the ArcelorMittal price increase announcement has any impact on lead times or price negotiations with steel buyers. Steel Market Update is keeping our SMU Price Momentum Indicator as pointing toward lower prices over the short term. We will adjust the indicator to neutral as soon as another steel mill follows the ArcelorMittal lead. AM USA has done something interesting with their increase as they have identified the "minimum" base prices for hot rolled ($625 per ton), cold rolled ($825 per ton) and hot-dipped galvanized ($825 per ton). You can compare those base prices against what we are publishing for flat rolled steel prices for this week.

One of the questions we get regularly is what are steel buyers and sellers of steel saying about their business (demand) and inventory levels? Over this past week, Steel Market Update spoke with quite a few companies and asked them how they were seeing business and if their company was building flat rolled or steel plate inventories. A number believe flat rolled steel prices will return to their normal seasonal swoon in early fourth quarter, only to rebound when steel mill lead times reach into the New Year.

CENTRIA, a manufacturer of architectural metal wall and roof systems based in Pittsburgh, announced the addition of Stephan Ploszay to the CENTRIA team as Product Manager, Rainscreen Systems.

In response to the recent hike in the cost of graphite electrodes, AK Steel Holding Corp. will implement an electrode surcharge for all stainless product shipments effective Oct 29. The surcharge for November will be $13.20 per ton. The amount will be same for all stainless grades produced by the company. The monthly electrode surcharge amount will be listed in the company's monthly surcharge publication.

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ArcelorMittal reports that a portion of its mill in Calvert, Ala., suffered minor damage over the weekend due to a small, localized tornado related to Hurricane Nate. The company halted production on Friday night for safety reasons, but resumed operations Sunday afternoon.

The construction industry added 8,000 jobs in September for its highest level since 2008, but could have hired even more if qualified workers were available, said the Associated General Contractors of America.

Construction unemployment was 4.7 percent in September, its lowest September rate since 2000, said AGC. Average hourly earnings have increased 3 percent from last year to $29.19, nearly 10 percent more than the average nonfarm private sector job in the U.S.

The Associated General Contractors of America urged Congress and the Trump administration to include new spending as part of the tax reform proposal to reverse declining infrastructure investment. New investments will offset declining public sector demand and help boost overall economic activity, said AGC.

"It is hard for American employers to be globally competitive when their workers are stuck in traffic and their products are being detoured around crumbling bridges," said AGC CEO Stephen E. Sandherr.

Most major construction spending categories increased from July to August, but activity was mixed compared to spending levels a year earlier, according to an analysis of new government data by the AGC. Association officials noted that big drops in public investments mean infrastructure will continue to deteriorate and impede economic growth.

Big River Steel presented a check for $50 million to Arkansas Governer Asa Hutchinson for full repayment of a loan from the State of Arkansas—and did it 17 years early.

Consumer confidence took a hit in the storm-affected regions of the South, but overall remains at high levels, which is positive news for the U.S. economy.

“Consumer confidence decreased slightly in September after a marginal improvement in August,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, an independent business research association based in New York. “Confidence in Texas and Florida, however, decreased considerably, as these two states were the most severely impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Despite the slight downtick in confidence, consumers’ assessment of current conditions remains quite favorable and their expectations for the short-term suggest the economy will continue expanding at its current pace.”

Construction employment increased in 274 out of 358 metro areas between August 2016 and August 2017, declined in 52 and stagnated in 32, according to a new analysis of federal employment data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials noted that the construction job gains come even as 70 percent of responding firms reported having a hard time finding qualified craft workers to hire.

The New York chapter of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries (AWMI) will be suspended at the end of this year due to declining membership. Members are encouraged to continue their association membership as an unaffiliated member or associating with another chapter.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index gained 5.9 percent in July following a 5.8 percent gain in June. The 20-City Composite posted a 5.8 percent year-over-year gain in the latest report, up from 5.6 percent the previous month.

A modest inventory is allowing sellers to boost prices as competition for available homes intensifies. Prices accelerated the most in Seattle, Portland and Las Vegas, with year-over-year gains of 13.5 percent, 7.6 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively.

A contractor at Nucor Steel in Decatur, Ala., died at the mill on Saturday afternoon after falling into a vat containing waste product from finished rolled steel.

An explosion at the Gerdau long products steel mill in Wilton, Iowa, injured three employees and a contractor on Wednesday night. The incident occurred in the facility's melt shop and resulted in temporary suspension of operations.

The United Steelworkers union is calling for the United States to negotiate stronger NAFTA rules of origin. The union charges that the rules negotiated more than 25 years ago do not reflect current economic reality and sourcing patterns.

Increased imported content from China and other nations has been detrimental to U.S. production in North America, claims the union.

Steel Market Update is working on a new index to measure flat rolled steel inventories in service center warehouses at the end of each month. Our goal is to assist the flat rolled steel industry to better understand inventories and their potential impact on steel mill order books and lead times. SMU will also analyze data provided from distributors to track steel inventory trends.

We are working to accomplish this in a variety of ways:

ArcelorMittal is not expecting a big bump in business anytime soon due to the hurricane damage in Texas and the Southeast. “That will take a while to pass through,” said Wendell Carter, vice president and general manager of the steelmaker’s Indiana Harbor mill. Carter responded to questions during a media tour of the East Chicago, Ind., mill on Wednesday.

Nucor is checking out five states in the Midwest and Southeast as potential sites for a new steel bar micro mill project. Locations in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina and Florida are under consideration. The board of directors also approved an expansion of Nucor's existing merchant bar operations in either Illinois or Ohio.

World Trade Online reported this morning that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told a U.S. Senator the Section 232 review on steel will not be ready until after tax reform legislation has been completed. This is in line with what President Trump said in July when he told The Wall Street Journal, “We’re waiting till we get everything finished up between health care and taxes and maybe even infrastructure.”

U.S. Army General Lloyd J. Austin III has been elected to the Nucor board of directors, effective Sept. 18.

General Austin, 64, retired as a four-star general in 2016 after nearly 41 years with the U.S. Army. From March 2013 through March 2016, he served as the commander of U.S. Central Command responsible for military strategy and joint operations throughout the 20-country Central Region that includes Iraq, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Prior to that he served as the 33rd Vice Chief of Staff of the Army from January 2012 to March 2013 and as the Combined Forces Commander in Iraq from September 2010 through the completion of Operation New Dawn in December 2011.

The U.S. Commerce Department today announced an affirmative preliminary determination in the countervailing duty investigation on exports of metal tool chests and cabinets from China. Commerce calculated preliminary subsidy rates ranging from 17.32 percent to 32.07 percent.

Seven out of 10 respondents to the latest Steel Market Update market trends questionnaire feel the United States should not withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Less than 30 percent say the U.S. should follow through on its threats to pull out of the trade pact if it does not win concessions from Canada and Mexico.

What happens to all those autos ruined by the double whammy of hurricanes in the South? Cox Automotive estimates 300,000 to 500,000 cars were damaged by Hurricane Harvey. Auto-market researcher Black Book puts the total in Texas closer to one million. And millions more could be added to the toll after Hurricane Irma is tallied.

"We reviewed damage numbers in both (Hurricane) Katrina and (Superstorm) Sandy, which were the most comparable storms. We looked at the reporting of wide-spread flooding, which more resembled Katrina than Sandy. We took into account the high vehicle density and the dependency on vehicles in Houston," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Cox Automotive, in a media conference call.

Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co., Los Angeles, reports that its operations in the Houston area suffered no material damage to facilities, equipment or inventories because of Hurricane Harvey. Many facilities were closed and unable to ship for most of last week due to the catastrophic flooding, but are now reopened and operational.

Toronto-based Russel Metals, Inc., has acquired Color Steels, Inc., a service center that processes and distributes pre-painted metals from facilities in Thornhill, Ontario, and Laval, Quebec.

David Sanderson will continue as president of Color Steels, along with the current management team. Color Steel’s revenues for the last year totaled approximately $45 million.

Over the past three days, Steel Market Update (SMU) had all hands on deck for our 7th SMU Steel Summit Conference. The conference was once again held at the Georgia International Convention Center next to the Atlanta International Airport.

We had record attendance with 661 steel and manufacturing executives registered compared to 434 last year. There were 309 companies registered from the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Japan, Ecuador and Poland.

Here are what a number of manufacturing companies, steel service centers and members of the financial community had to say about our conference.

André Gerdau Johannpeter has resigned as the chief executive of Gerdau SA, one of the largest steelmakers in the Americas, as members of the founding family exit from the company’s executive management. Gostavo Werneck, head of Gerdau’s Brazil operations, will replace him in January.

Driven by a steep drop-off in shipments from Brazil, U.S. steel imports fell 11.5 percent from June to July. Despite the monthly decline, the 3.47 million net tons of imports were still up 6.3 percent compared to July of last year, reports the American Institute for International Steel, Alexandria, Va.

ArcelorMittal’s three plate facilities in the United States—Burns Harbor in Burns Harbor, Ind., and Coatesville and Conshohocken in Pennsylvania—have each achieved DNV-GL certification, which will allow the company to expand business opportunities domestically and internationally for its plate products.

DNV-GL (Germanischer Lloyd) is a classification society that sets rules and standards for industries, especially maritime-related markets. They establish best practices by means of quality codes, standards and documentation. These criteria ensure manufacturing compliance and allow conditions whereby warranties and insurance criteria are met.

More than a billion dollars of financing is headed to Big River Steel. The Osceola, Ark., steel company announced Thursday that it has closed on $1.225 billion of financing that will be used to refinance a substantial majority of its outstanding debt and for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Many Americans see the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a contributing factor to the growth of the U.S. economy over the past 20 years and believe the focus of the NAFTA negotiations should be on modernizing the agreement, not withdrawing from it, according to a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults commissioned by Livingston International Inc. and conducted online by Harris Poll.

Though it is often portrayed as a bad deal for their country, data from the survey indicate Americans seem to have put the trade deal in context with the broader changes that have taken place in the economy and do not seem to single it out as a principal cause of economic adversity.

Olympic Steel announced the promotion of Terry Rohde to Director of Operations. Rhode began his career at Olympic Steel in 2008 and was promoted to General Manager of the Chicago division in 2008. In his new role he will responsible for all of Olympic Steel's facilities and equipment.

Zinc prices hit a 10-year high this past week, climbing to $3,000 per metric ton ($1.36 per pound) on the London Metal Exchange on Wednesday. By Monday, zinc had risen to $1.41 per pound. Strong global demand and shrinking inventory boosted prices, as well as a shortage of Chinese zinc.

The primary use of zinc is for the production of coated steels such as galvanized and Galvalume. A surge in zinc prices could have an impact on the coating extras used by steel mills across the world. Higher zinc prices means higher costs to apply zinc to steel.

Environmental inspections have shut down 60 percent of zinc mines in China for one month, further reducing constrained supply caused by capacity reductions at Swiss-based miner Glencore. Glencore idled one-third of its zinc capacity in October 2015. Nearly 500,000 metric tons of zinc were removed from the market, pushing prices up by more than 90 percent.

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia added construction jobs in the year between July 2016 and July 2017, yet only half the states added construction jobs in the month between June and July of this year amid declining public-sector investments in infrastructure and other construction projects, reports the Associated General Contractors of America in an analysis of Labor Department data.

Firms in parts of the country that build infrastructure projects are seeing less demand for their services amid overall declines in public-sector spending. "Despite growing private-sector demand, it appears that construction employment in some parts of the country is being brought down by declining public-sector investments," said Ken Simonson, chief economist for the association. "Some of these declines will be offset thanks to recently enacted state infrastructure funding increases, but stagnant federal investments are not helping."

For the first time since Steel Market Update began hosting the SMU Steel Summit Conferences, we have officially sold out the August 28-30, 2017 Conference.

This year’s conference, which is our 7^th, will be the best attended as we host more than 600 manufacturing, steel service centers, steel mills, trading companies and toll processors as well as executives from companies associated with those industries.

The conference has an international flair this year with companies attending from England, Poland, Ecuador, Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, Japan, Canada and the United States.

The response to this year’s SMU Steel Summit Conference has been overwhelming. So much so that we will close registrations as of the end of business on Friday, Aug. 18. As of Thursday morning, we had less than 10 seats remaining to be sold before we reached a standing room only situation.

The conference will be officially sold out for the first time in our seven-year history.

The "woodie" automobile, popular in the 1940s and '50s, may be on its way back, but in a seriously different mode.

Japanese researchers are developing the latest challenge to automotive steel, a super-strength, lightweight product that uses wood as a raw material. Cellulose nanofiber, made from wood pulp, is mixed into plastics forming a product that is one-fifth the weight of steel and five times as strong, according to researchers at Kyoto University.

The Nucor Sheet Mill Group, which handles flat rolled products, announced a minimum of $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) price increase on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel products. The increases are to go in effect immediately, according to the letter emailed to the Nucor customer base this afternoon.

Trucking industry revenues hit $676.2 billion in 2016, nearly 80 percent of the nation’s total freight bill, reports the American Trucking Associations in the trade group’s just released “ATA American Trucking Trends 2017” report.

Cliffs Natural Resources, in celebration of 170 years in business, has returned to its historical name Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.

"The historical name Cleveland-Cliffs is synonymous with our strong heritage and is the perfect one for our next era of growth," said Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves.

Nucor’s Plate Group announced a $30 price increase today due to escalating raw material and input costs. Nucor will increase transaction prices on all new orders for carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate by $30 per ton, effective immediately, the steelmaker said.

The following steel mills are registered to attend this year's SMU Steel Summit Conference at the end of this month: ArcelorMittal Mexico, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, ArcelorMittal/Nippon Sumitomo Calvert, Ternium USA, Ternium Mexico, NLMK USA, Nucor,

By: Jack Bellissimo of Hubbell, Inc.

The information technology culture is growing rapidly all around us and everyday new innovations are being developed. What is it about the IT or computer science job field that is so exciting? When was the last time we took a step back and analyzed what the allure is? What are these industries doing right and what is missing within the legacy industries like steel, textiles, lumber and manufacturing?

One suggestion would be that the largest growing population based on age aka the millennials are flocking to both information tech and computer science. The legacy industries that were once considered to be the backbone of America are now being replaced with software, touch-screens and virtual-reality glasses.  Without question the steel industry is suffering from not being able to hire, retain and grow fast enough to compete with the high-tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Uber, or Netflix.

Like in the United States, steelmakers in the European Union are using their trade laws to fight back against steel imports that are unfairly subsidized by the governments in China and other countries. On Aug. 9, the European Union imposed provisional import duties of up to 28.5 percent on certain Chinese corrosion-resistant steels.

Nucor Corporation announced today that it will acquire St. Louis Cold Drawn, Inc., a manufacturer of cold finished steel bar. The company's cold drawn rounds, hexagons, squares, and special sections serve the U.S. and Mexican automotive and industrial markets and will add to Nucor's value-added product portfolio.

Houston-based Triple-S Steel Holdings has completed its acquisition of Arbor Metals, a Dallas service center specializing in slitting of narrow carbon, stainless and nickel alloy materials.

The company, which will operate as part of the Triple-S specialty metals group, employs about 40 people under the leadership of Jack Matheson.

CENTRIA, an industry leader in architectural metal wall and roof systems, announced the promotion of Jeff Peskowitz to Manager of Product Management. Peskowitz, who joined CENTRIA in 2015, will be responsible for all product management activities and cross-functional collaboration with sales, operations, brand marketing, engineering and research and development.

Steel Market Update (SMU) regularly receives questions from those who have already registered to attend our SMU Steel Summit Conference, as well as those who are contemplating attending (there is still time and space). In order to help both groups, here are some of the Frequently Asked Questions about our conference:

General Conference Questions

Q: When do I need to arrive in Atlanta?

A: The ATL airport is 10 minutes away by SkyTrain. Our conference begins on Monday, Aug. 28, at 2 PM ET in the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway Hotel. This is the first stop on the SkyTrain prior to going to the car rental station.

Q: What is the dress code?

A: Business casual. We recommend company logo golf shirts as networking is a big part of any SMU conference.

Q: Where is “the best place to be” on Monday and Tuesday evenings?

A quick update to the steel community regarding our upcoming SMU Steel Summit Conference as well as our Fort Wayne, Indiana Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop.

In their pursuit of free and fair trade, U.S. steelmakers are often called protectionist—a label they increasingly resent.

Steel industry trade groups, including the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Steel Manufacturers Association, have urged the Trump administration to take a harder stance on steel imports. Trade action, including new tariffs or quotas under the now-delayed Section 232, are necessary to counter the unfair advantage held by foreign competitors who are subsidized by their governments, they say. Others in the supply chain contend that restricting steel imports on the grounds they pose a threat to national security is simply a ploy to give domestic steelmakers an opportunity to raise prices. Some even call the domestic steel companies hypocritical in their appeals for more free trade globally while supporting more trade restrictions at home.

Construction employment increased by 6,000 jobs in July to the highest level since October 2008, amid a tight labor market that may be keeping contractors from hiring as many workers as they need, according to an analysis of new government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials urged local, state and federal leaders to enact measures designed to expose more high school students to high-paying careers in construction to offset growing labor shortages.

USS-POSCO Industries (UPI) has promoted MD. Amin to Vice-President of UPI's Commercial Group. Amin will lead the company's sales and marketing activities.

Construction employment made the biggest gains in metro areas in June with particular strength in the western U.S., according to an analysis of data by the Associated General Contractors of America. The largest losses were in the middle or eastern parts of the country, noted AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson.

U.S. Steel anticipates no delays in customer shipments following an explosion at its Great Lakes Works hot strip mill Monday night, which sent five employees to the hospital. Three of the injured were released, while two were admitted for further treatment. One employee was treated and released at the plant's on-site medical facility.

Written by: John Packard, Founder, Steel Market Update

Steel Market Update was incorporated and began selling subscriptions (memberships) of just our steel newsletter during August 2008. Today, we are celebrating our ninth birthday. I want to take a moment to thank our members and those who participate in our conference and workshops. I want to thank those of you who read our newsletters, blog posts, social media posts and especially those who speak highly of SMU to your customers, suppliers and friends in the industry. We have been blessed over the last nine years and we are looking forward to having many more celebrations in the years to come.

Steel Market Update began with a mission to provide quality steel market intelligence to those who were buying and selling steel. I felt at the time (and still do) that the market craved an “insider’s” view of what was happening to prices, momentum, supply and demand, inventories, trade (foreign steel) and many other issues affecting the industry.

I also have always been interested in making sure buyers and sellers of steel were receiving information about the process of buying and selling steel from someone with experience on the subject. Early on we started writing articles on: The Truth About Selling Steel and Steel Buyers Basics. Recently, we added a new category called: Ethics and Your Business.

Construction spending is suffering from a decrease in public investment said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America.

"Construction spending is still increasing overall but growth has become much more uneven across categories in recent months," said Simonson. "There has been a steep decline in public investment in nearly all types of construction over the past year. Private nonresidential construction is still rising overall but generally at slower rates than was occurring a few months ago."

On Monday, Aug. 28, the steel event of the year will kick off in Atlanta. With four weeks to go and 560 steel and manufacturing executives already registered, expectations are for this conference to truly be the most dynamic steel conference in North America for 2017. Welcome to the 7th Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Summit Conference. This is what the fuss is all about.

Three days of rubbing shoulders with decision-makers from around the United States, Canada and Mexico as we enjoy one another while learning, networking and preparing your company for the future. We also have industry executives coming from Ecuador, Poland, Egypt and the United Kingdom.

We have 23 excellent speakers presenting topics of interest for those involved in the steel industry. Steel Market Update has spent 12 months preparing for this conference with one goal: for this conference to be the best one yet. We think we will accomplish that goal.

Here is how we see the three days of our conference playing out:

“Business negotiation is similar to poker. Just because I may be bluffing doesn’t mean I am morally defective. Bluffing is a universally recognized part of the game,” responded one reader to Steel Market Update’s new “Ethics and Your Business” column.

There are but four very short weeks to go before THE major steel event of the year will kick off in Atlanta. Steel Market Update (SMU) is hosting our 7th SMU Steel Summit Conference, the fastest growing steel conference in North America.

Why is our conference so successful? Listen to some of last year’s attendees (click to play):

At a Section 232 briefing to the Ways & Means Committee on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acknowledged the complexity of initiating broad trade action against imports of steel and aluminum.

A "voluntary" agreement to address steel overcapacity was suggested that would allow countries to negotiate a solution to overcapacity and the resulting import surges.

U.S. Steel announced the appointment of Kevin P. Bradley as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Bradley will lead all aspects of the company's financial enterprise, including internal and external reporting, credit, tax and treasury services, investor relations, internal controls and internal audit administrative oversight. He will also assist in developing and implementing the company's strategic initiatives, including their ongoing transformation.

A shortage of qualified job seekers resulted in only 25 states adding construction jobs between May and June despite strong industry demand, says the Associated General Contractors of America. Forty-one states added construction jobs between June 2016 and June 2017.

"Contractors in most of the country say they have plenty of projects booked and would like to hire more workers if they could find them, so it is likely that some states with monthly employment declines have a shortage of workers available to hire rather than a slowdown in work," said Ken Simonson, chief economist for the association. "Given the low unemployment rate in most states, other industries are competing hard for workers, making it difficult for contractors to find new construction workers, let alone experienced ones."

Registrations for our 2017 SMU Steel Summit Conference continue to roll in. Five weeks from today our 7th conference will begin, registrations topped 530 steel and manufacturing executives as of this morning (Monday, July 24). We have more than 240 companies registered to attend and we anticipate we will add more over the final 34 days. The conference, located at the Georgia International Convention Center, will be held over three days: August 28, 29 and 30.

There is no doubt, the SMU Steel Summit Conference is the fastest growing steel conference in North America. We also have the highest percentage of steel and manufacturing decision makers under one roof during those three days in August.

Trade talks with China this week ended in a stalemate after the U.S. pressed for "more fair" trade terms. The discussions were described as "a frank exchange," but little if any agreement was reached on bilateral trade and economic issues, according to a senior U.S. official. A press conference following the meeting was canceled and no joint statement was issued.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, "China acknowledged our shared objective to reduce the trade deficit, which both sides will work cooperatively to achieve."

We’re in for a good year ahead, says popular economist Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics, who will be a keynote speaker during Steel Market Update’s 2017 Steel Summit Aug. 28-30 at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta.

Previewing his remarks, ITR forecasts another six months of accelerating economic expansion for the U.S., followed by six more months of somewhat slower growth. “Use your rates-of-change and leading indicators to determine when your specific business will be impacted, and move forward with confidence knowing what is coming,” he recommends.

United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard says the Trump administration's objectives for NAFTA don't go far enough.

In a statement following publication of the objectives by the U.S. Trade Representative, Gerard said that although the USW has long supported renegotiation of NAFTA, protection for workers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico has been supplanted by corporate interests.

Drexel Metals, a custom metal fabricator and portfolio company of Arborview Capital, has been acquired by Carlisle Construction Materials. Drexel, headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is a leader in the residential and nonresidential architectural metal roofing segment with regional facilities in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Colorado and Maryland.

The very first Steel Market Update Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop did not include a mill tour. It was held in Houston and, even though the class was interesting and educational, a few of the attendees told us how much better it would have been if they could have toured a working steel mill. We listen to our attendees. The next Steel 101 workshop was in Chicago and included a tour of the NLMK Portage, Ind., minimill. On Oct. 4-5, 2017, we will conduct our 23rd Steel 101 workshop in Fort Wayne, Ind., and our friends at Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) are allowing our group to tour their Butler, Ind., mill to help us reinforce the steelmaking and rolling process.

Is today’s contentious and acrimonious political climate having a negative effect on American business? Is the win-at-any-cost attitude in politics, so evident in everyday news reports, eroding ethical business practices in steel and other industries? Is it OK to bend the truth or to make up “fake news” to damage your competition?

The desire to do whatever it takes to be successful in business is nothing new. (Case in point: Gordon Gekko, who proclaimed “Greed is Good” in the ’80s depiction of Wall Street.) But there’s a thin line between success and unethical behavior, and it’s hard to determine if it’s moving in a positive or negative direction.

The 2017 SMU Steel Summit Conference Events App is now available for all attendees, sponsors and exhibitors to download and use. The App is where you find all the most up-to-date information about the conference, what you work from to network with other attendees and what you will use to get the speaker presentations after the conference is over. To get the most out of the SMU Steel Summit Conference experience, you will want to download and use the SMU Events App.

Welcome to the mobile era. When you attend Steel Market Update events, you can be armed with a tablet or smartphone and have a much better, and more productive, conference experience. Everything is at your fingertips: a detailed conference agenda, list of speakers with biographical information, a complete list of the attendees, sponsors and exhibitors, and more. You can take notes as you go and, importantly, you can connect, engage and follow up with other attendees in ways you have not been able to do in the past. You can search through the attendee list and find those you would like to contact, send an email to meet later or forward company information with ease. And, with the SMU Events App, social media is integrated, as well. You can tweet or post to Facebook or LinkedIn during the event without leaving the App, interacting with others quickly and efficiently.

We continue to develop new and better ways to simplify and enhance your conference experience.

Each year, more and more of our attendees use the SMU Events App. At the 2016 SMU Steel Summit Conference, 80 percent of the attendees downloaded the App. Last year, the most popular features were the ability to access others attending the conference and viewing the agenda. We also found more people accessing the speaker PowerPoint presentations through the App. During the conference, we used the polling feature for the first time. That’s when we discovered twice as many of our attendees supported Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Our attendees got some early insight on who would be the next president months before the election.

ArcelorMittal Cleveland General Manager Eric Hague retired June 30, 2017, after 42 years in the Cleveland steel industry.

Hauge was instrumental in preserving the blast furnaces when former owner LTV closed the plant in 2001. Instead of a warm idling of the furnaces, Hauge suggested a controversial cold shut down to preserve them from the harsh winter conditions in Cleveland. Hague was always confident that a buyer would be found and the plant would be revived.

ArcelorMittal's Georgetown steel mill may see new life under prospective owner Liberty House Group. A tentative deal has been reached with UK-based Liberty House to purchase the shuttered wire rod facility, but a completed purchase agreement has not been signed.