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Only 10 days after naming a new president for its Venture Steel Inc. subsidiary, Royal Laser Corp., Toronto, has signed a letter of intent to buy steel service center Apogee Slitting, Mississauga, Ontario, for up to Canadian $13.7 million ($13.3 million).
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Jacquet Metals SA, a stainless and nickel alloy plate distributor, has added a service center in Racine, Wis., it’s third in the United States, while expanding its original Pennsylvania facility and adding inventory and making other changes in Houston.
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With a four-year contract expiring at midnight Friday, United Auto Workers (UAW) union members reportedly stepped up preparations for a possible strike against General Motors Corp.
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Metals distributor BMG Metals Inc., Richmond, Va., has agreed to buy the assets of specialty metals distributor ALN Metals Inc., Baltimore, for an undisclosed price.
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The moderator of a panel discussion by carbon and alloy plate mill executives found an interesting query in the stack of audience-submitted questions at the Metals Service Center Institute's Economic Summit Forecast in Schaumburg, Ill. "With the significant foreign ownership in the plate industry, going forward on a global basis do you expect to see fewer trade cases?"
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While the U.S. trade deficit for goods and services edged slightly lower in July, U.S. manufacturers were in no mood to celebrate as the trade deficit with China jumped 21.6 percent to $23.8 billion from $19.6 billion in the same month last year.
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Russel Metals Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, said it would end reporting under U.S. law on its 6.375-percent senior notes due in 2014, taking advantage of a new change in requirements.
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Automotive production is expected to remain flat through most of next year, with a possible recovery beginning from North American capacity additions scheduled late in 2008 and as auto suppliers continue to consolidate.
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Auto equipment manufacturer ArvinMeritor Inc., Troy, Mich., plans to close shock absorber plants in Chickasha, Okla., and Toronto and shift more operations to Mexico as part of a previously announced restructuring.
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Federal government figures showing that the United States lost 46,000 manufacturing jobs last month sent shockwaves through Washington’s manufacturing community.
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The U.S. corporate bankruptcy system needs to be overhauled, the United Steelworkers union told a House subcommittee.
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Metals information management software company Steelman Software Solutions Inc., Toronto, has signed SMS Demag AG, Düsseldorf, Germany, to be its first European value-added reseller.
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Timken Co., Canton, Ohio, has supplied bearings to a Norwegian mining company that have allowed it to increase the load capacity of freight cars transporting iron ore. Rana Gruber AS is Timken’s first rail customer in Norway, where extensive upgrading of rail freight operations is expected in coming years.
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Ryerson Inc. said the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period for the proposed $2-billion acquisition of the company by Platinum Equity LLC, Beverly Hills, Calif., has expired, completing the pre-closing U.S. antitrust review process for the transaction, executives said in a statement.
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Gibraltar Industries Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., has purchased Florence Corp., a Manhattan, Kan.-based manufacturer of engineered storage products, for an undisclosed price.
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Shanghai Baosteel Group Corp. has awarded a 20-year charter contract to Japan’s Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) to transport iron ore from Western Australia to China, the fifth such contract between the two companies.
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Chinese steel and vanadium producer Chengde Iron & Steel Group has expanded iron ore fines capacity at its mining joint venture in Inner Mongolia to 900,000 tonnes a year.
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News last week that the first test flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been postponed from September to November-December raised the possibility to some outsiders that it might signal a possible stretch-out in supplier deliveries.
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Richard (Dick) J. Probst, a longtime trader at Aaron Ferrer & Sons in Omaha, Neb., died last month at the age of 84.
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In an Aug. 31 story, Mercury switch recovery program building momentum, albeit slowly, the overriding theme seemed to be that the National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program (NVMSRP) is fraught with downside indicators that show how poorly it is progressing after completing the first year of its life. As a representative of the participating companies of the Steel Manufacturers Association to the NVMSRP steering group, I wish to draw attention to the merits and accomplishments of the program.
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Auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corp. said it has settled all of its outstanding disputes with General Motors Corp., its former parent and largest customer, ahead of filing a reorganization plan with a New York bankruptcy court that could allow it to emerge from Chapter 11 later this year.
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Port authorities in China are close to clearing the backlog of vessels that built up during a major crackdown on importers trying to avoid complying with new duties, trade sources said.
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Alcan Inc., Montreal, is supplying DaimlerChrysler AG’s Mercedes-Benz division with all-aluminum crash-management systems for the new Mercedes C-Class.
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Klein Steel Service Inc., Rochester, N.Y., is moving its Buffalo, N.Y., service center from an unheated, leased 80,000-square-foot warehouse in a southern suburb to an 110,000-square-foot facility in a northern suburb that it purchased from Gibraltar Industries Inc.