June 18, 2008
It used to be the case that minimills (scrap buyers) and integrated mills (iron ore buyers) had very different cost structures. Integrated steel producers’ costs were relatively fixed because iron ore and coking coal were sold on an annual contract basis and did not change much year to year. Scrap prices on the other hand, [...]
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March 26, 2008
There has been a recent flurry of steel producer acquisitions of scrap processors (SDI-Omnisource, Nucor- DJ Joseph, DJ Joseph-MRS, Galamba) and persistent rumors that others are circling targets. By my calculations steel producers now control about 40% of the US ferrous scrap industry. They controlled less than half that only a few years ago. If [...]
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