Stainless prices to stay on rocky path

Sep 27, 2012 | 03:32 PM | Thorsten Schier

Tags  stainless, stainless prices, Ed Blot, Jonathan Green, ThyssenKrupp Stainless, Outokumpu, Inoxum, Thorsten Schier

NEW YORK — The pricing environment likely will remain challenging in the U.S. stainless market next year due to the ramp-up of ThyssenKrupp Stainless USA Inc.’s melt shop in Calvert, Ala., and continually growing imports from Asia.

"It’s going to be a tough battle for everyone here in the U.S.," Ed Blot, owner of consultancy Ed Blot & Associates Inc., said at AMM’s 26th annual Stainless and Its Alloys Conference in Chicago.

"When the ThyssenKrupp melt shop goes in effectively at the beginning of next year ... under the Thyssen organization, their stated goal was to go from 12 percent of the market in 2010 to 25 percent in 2014. So where does that 13 percent come from when we still see imports here? That means they’ll be fighting imports. And how do you fight imports? It’s going to be on price," Blot said, adding that other domestic producers, some of which are also in the process....





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