What's New

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This is my first go at something I plan on doing each month or two, writing a newsletter on "What's New at Berlin". As I think about this responsibility to make this section of our web site topical and interesting for our customers and employees, I realize that it's going to be hard to keep you on the edge of your seat. All I realistically hope for, though, is that I can help you stay current with some of the issues and events that are affecting our company. Some of these things may be affecting you as well. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for everyone. I'm going to keep it short, don't worry. So here goes...

The big news in the steel market is, of course, that it's very, very busy. Most of the mills' order books are very full. Lead times are extending and, yes, prices are going up. I know that's not something any buyer likes to hear but it's a reality we have to deal with. In talking to as many people in our industry as I can from around the world, there seems to be a few consistent themes that appear to be the cause of this domestic, as well as global, tightness of supply and accompanying rise in prices.

1) The Asian economies are getting busier from the low point of a year ago. Demand in the whole region has increased. This means that many of the tons that the Asian mills were exporting out of Asia are no longer available and are being sold and consumed in the region.

2) China has been consolidating and shutting down some of their old, open hearth furnaces in the last year or two. One figure I saw showed that China is importing 30 million tons per year more now than they were 18 months ago.

3) The Japanese mills have reduced some of their hot melt capacity. As a result of the USA anti-dumping suits and the Asian economic slowdown, the Japanese mills chose to make less steel available to the market.

4) The US mills' anti-dumping suits on almost all steel products, whether or not they were upheld by the ITC (International Trade Commission), have had a large impact on the availability and price of Hot Rolled Steel Sheet, Structural Steel, Hot Rolled Plate, Stainless Steel sheet and strip, Cold Rolled Steel Sheet and Tin Plate. US mills have announced numerous price increases on almost all these products over the last 12 months and more increases are forecasted. Overseas producers who are still able to sell into the US market are happy to sell at higher prices. Though the US mills lost the Cold Rolled anti-dumping case in February, the overseas importers won't be able to bring any large tonnage in until late Summer, if they even have many available tons to sell. Whether or not that will exert a downward pressure on pricing remains to be seen. The only significant anti-dumping case that hasn't been resolved is the one that Weirton Steel filed against the Japanese producers. Though the Department of Commerce will likely rule against the Japanese in June, the ITC is scheduled to make a final ruling in August.

5) The US economy keeps on humming along. Consumers keep on buying and producers keep on producing. Alan Greenspan is trying to slow it down to fend off inflation but it won't stop. One question I have is, when do higher interest rates, themselves, become inflationary ? In other words, if the economy won't slow down due to many factors and increasing the interest rate doesn't slow it down, doesn't that same increase in interest cost just become an added cost that producers pass on, adding to inflation ?

We've recently hired several new employees at Berlin to continue our successful growth:

Mike Burns has joined our sales team on the Stainless Steel Strip side. He will work closely with Harry Allen, our VP Stainless Steel. Mike has many years experience in the Stainless Steel industry having worked most recently for Alstrip, the service center division of Allegheny-Teledyne.

Jamie Downey has joined our Tin Mill Product team. Jamie knows both the end user and supply side of Tin Plate extremely well having spent the last few years working for FrancoSteel, the trading arm of the French steel producer, Usinor Steel.

Rick Hinton has joined Berlin as our Quality Manager. His initial focus will be getting Berlin Metals to QS 9000 certification. Rick spent the last few years working at Amstek Metals where he led their move to QS 9000 certification.

Jim Simpson has recently joined our sales team after spending 40 years with Weirton Steel. Jim brings with him a very special and thorough knowledge of how flat rolled steel products are made and how they're used. He will be of great help with customers wanting process improvement, to change their specification for cost reduction or needing general, metal related problem solving.

That's all for now. Please check back again for the latest "What's New".

Regards,

Roy Berlin, President
Rberlin@berlinmetals.com
April 20, 2000

Other Newsletters:
July, 2006    July, 2005    March, 2004
September, 2003  January, 2003 April, 2002
September, 2001 May, 2001 January, 2001
August, 2000

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