Nerds of Steel

Here’s BlueScope’s detailed description of the what they just acquired from Ternium. Follow the link below and download the original from the link on the righthand side of the page.

BlueScopeSteelpresentation20Dec07[1].pdf

Until a few years ago the steel industry was considered mature, and the moniker was accurate. Global steel demand grew more slowly than did the world’s population. In much of the developed world, demand for steel was stagnant after having gone through a long period of decline. Since 1998, however, the steel industry seems to have re-ignited its growth engine and kicked into a new gear. The industry has been growing at 6% annually and most analysts see strong growth continuing for a decade or more. What explains the steel industry’s reemergence and can it continue?

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a very useful Google Maps mashup from MapEcos that uses emissions data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (which has been gathering industrial emissions data from industrial facilities since 1988). You will be asked to enter a name and a zip code on the landing page link above. You can do so or just hit skip it and go to the map. Once the map has booted, enter 3312 in the second search box for the SIC code for steel. All steel facilities in the database will populate the map. Zoom in on any region and then one of the map markers and the TRI data for each facility (along with other information) will show up in the marker’s callout balloon in a series of tabs along the top of the callout. 

And here’s the answer to the question “Who developed MapEcos?”: Read the rest of this entry »

Before we get too “hoity-toity” about the effects of Chinese industrial expansion on the Chinese and global environment, it’s worth being reminded of events in the not so distant past that affected industrial cities in the West and how we talked about them. Read the rest of this entry »

More consolidation in the scrap industry. Here’s a nice overview of the acquisition of Metal Management by Sims. It’s a PDF file which will show up here somehow both to read and for download. Sims-Group-Merger-Presentation-Sep2007.pdf