Supply Chain

• NOV slates leadership changes Dec 06, 2012

  National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) has named former executive vice president and chief financial officer Clay Williams as the company’s new president and chief operating officer.

• Shipping continues despite North Sea shipwreck Dec 06, 2012

  Neither ports nor shipping lanes are experiencing congestion after a ship sank in the North Sea, a spokesman for the Port of Rotterdam told AMM sister publication Steel First on Thursday.

• Two convicted on charges of GM trade secrets theft Dec 06, 2012

  A former employee of General Motors Co. and her husband have been convicted of allegedly possessing trade secrets about the engineering of hybrid vehicles and conspiring to use them to benefit their own company.

• Steel suppliers listed among creditors of Bull Steel & Tube Dec 06, 2012

  Bankrupt Bull Steel & Tube Inc. has released a list of unsecured creditors, many of them steel suppliers, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in California.

• Freeport to buy oil, gas producers for $9B Dec 05, 2012

  Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. has agreed to acquire Plains Exploration & Production Co. and McMoRan Exploration Co. in a $9-billion move that executives say will further long-term growth by diversifying assets.

• BP suing fabricators over structural steel Dec 05, 2012

  BP Products North America Inc. has accused two structural steel fabricators of supplying structural steel with defective coating.

• Plains All American spends $500M to move crude by rail Dec 05, 2012

  Plains All American Pipeline LP has acquired four crude oil rail terminals and one under development from U.S. Development Group LLC for $500 million, the companies said Wednesday.

• West Coast dockworkers return to job Dec 05, 2012

  An eight-day labor dispute that pretty much halted container traffic out of two major West Coast ports came to a close late Tuesday with what appears to be only a short-term impact on ferrous scrap exports and little to no effect on steel imports.

• SMC key in growing Timet’s role in Precision Castparts Dec 05, 2012

  Precision Castparts Corp. will use its existing specialty alloys operations to extend the downstream product role of Titanium Metals Corp. under Timet’s future ownership by PCC.

• Airbus reaches milestone on A350 Dec 05, 2012

  Aircraft manufacturer Airbus SAS has completed the structural assembly and system connections for the first flight-test version of its new A350 Extra Wide Body (XWB) airliner.

• ITC says solar cell imports hurting US industry Dec 05, 2012

  The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has determined that the domestic industry is materially injured by imports of silicon photovoltaic cells (solar cells) from China.

• Former Severstal trader targets Latin America Dec 05, 2012

  NGX International Corp., a new trading firm based in Florida, has been focusing on "niche" Latin American steel markets not usually targeted by major trading companies, owner Nelson Gonçalves said.

• W. Coast port strike ends, backlogs may persist Dec 05, 2012

  A strike that lasted more than a week at two of the West Coast’s largest port facilities came to a close late Tuesday, although industry players say shipping backlogs could persist even as workers returned to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., Wednesday morning.

• Seco Tools to cut 20 US jobs due to Sandvik restructuring Dec 04, 2012

  Seco Tools Inc. will lay off 20 people at its Troy, Mich., site as part of Swedish industrial conglomerate Sandvik AB’s recently announced restructuring, a spokesman for parent company Seco Tools AB told AMM.

• Auto sales up, but fiscal cliff a concern Dec 04, 2012

  The top seven automakers sold 955,717 vehicles in the United States in November, up 3.3 percent from 925,028 the previous month and a 12.7-percent improvement over 848,123 in November last year, according to an AMM analysis.

• Shale-Inland taps Lundgren chief, Bouchard chairman Dec 04, 2012

  Shale-Inland Holdings LLC has named Richard "Rick" Lundgren as chief executive officer.

• TMK acquires majority stake in pipe maker Dec 04, 2012

  OAO TMK has acquired a 55-percent stake in Oman’s Gulf International Pipe Industry LLC (GIPI), as the Russian company seeks to boost its global presence as a supplier of energy tubulars to the oil and gas industry.

• GSI International awards contract to MWW Automotive Dec 04, 2012

  Automotive and industrial supplier GSI International Inc. said it has selected MWW Automotive Group, Howell, Mich., as its North American finishing supplier for its industrial product offerings in the region.

• Magna acquires German pump manufacturer Dec 04, 2012

  Automotive supplier Magna International Inc.’s Magna Powertrain unit has acquired Ixetic Verwaltungs GmbH, a German producer of automotive vacuum, engine and transmission pumps, for €308 million ($403 million).

• Germany's Iwis Group building Kentucky plant Dec 04, 2012

  German automotive drive chain manufacturer Iwis Group will spend more than $12.5 million to build a 119,000-square-foot plant in Murray, Ky.

• MRC appoints Hutchinson exec vp of Canada region Dec 04, 2012

  MRC Global Inc. has tapped industry veteran Scott A. Hutchinson to serve in the newly created role of executive vice president of its Canada region, effectively immediately, as the company reorganizes its operations in North America.

• Timken against steel unit spinoff talk Dec 03, 2012

  Splitting Timken Co.’s bearings and steel businesses wouldn’t be in the best interests of the company’s shareholders, its management said in response to a proposed spinoff of the company’s steel division.

• Another big PCC buy not likely soon: exec Dec 03, 2012

  Precision Castparts Corp. (PCC) isn’t at the end of its acquisition string, but another purchase on the scale of its pending blockbuster takeover of Titanium Metals Corp. (Timet) may not be in the cards anytime soon, PCC’s top executive said.

• USS forms Texas tubulars joint venture Dec 03, 2012

  U.S. Steel Corp.’s Tubular Products Inc. subsidiary has formed a 50-50 joint venture with Butch Gilliam Enterprises LLC to provide tubular services to energy industry customers in the Permian Basin.