Uncertainty regarding China’s stance on zero-COVID, when restrictions might ease, and riots within China throughout recent weeks have all contributed to more flat steel prices. What’s more, recession fears are starting to notably impact commodities. Yet another contributing factor? Fears of a railroad strike. With the cut-off date for meeting railroad unions’ terms fast approaching, […]
Category: Logistics
Potential Railroad Strike Threatens Metal Logistics
Roughly 1/3rd of all US exports rely on freight transport. Food, wood, coal and metal all move across the US’ 140,000 miles of freight routes. Because of this, many US goods providers are worried about the possibility of yet another major railway strike. In September, two of the 12 major US railway unions rejected negotiations, […]
Plate and HRC Steel Production Strained as Factories Shut Down
Metinvest, the Ukrainian steel production and mining group, recently began the process of restarting several of their Italian flats rolling mills. The factories had been offline for scheduled maintenance throughout May. And with global supplies strained, both Metinvest and the market are welcoming the much-needed additional steel production. Metinvest’s plate and hot rolled coil mill […]
2021 proved a disruptive one for metals, mining supply chains
The pandemic certainly created a challenging environment for business in 2021. Lockdowns hampered operations. Metal scarcity and rising metal prices caused immense cost pressures, loss of profits and, in some cases, bankruptcies. One, although by no means the only issue, was disruption to global supply chains. Research into the causes and potential solutions will be […]
Logistics costs ease heading into the New Year, but bottlenecks remain
Importers of metals and metal components may be seeing a glimmer of light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel of logistics chaos, sky-high freight rates and shipping delays. Freight rates have eased from peaks per 40ft container in the summer for some shippers of up to $15,000 to $9,000 last […]
This Morning in Metals: Pre-Labor Day retail gas prices at highest level since 2014
This morning in metals news: pre-Labor Day retail gasoline prices are at their highest level in seven years; meanwhile, payroll employment rose by 235,000 in August; and, lastly, Norilsk Nickel has signed an agreement to build a liquefied natural gas icebreaker. You want more MetalMiner on your terms. Sign up for weekly email updates here. […]
This Morning in Metals: Norsk Hydro to expand capacity at Sjunnen extrusion plant
This morning in metals news: Norsk Hydro plans to expand capacity at its Sjunnen aluminum extrusion plant; the Pilbara Ports Authority reported a decline in throughput in July; and, lastly, the United States International Trade Commission conducted a five-year sunset review on existing duty orders for carbon and alloy steel standard, line and pressure pipe […]
Week in Review: Shipping sector woes; oil prices fall; Toyota announces production cuts
Before we head into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the week that was and some of the metals storylines here on MetalMiner: Receive the latest short-term and long-term outlook for the full range of industrial metals (base and ferrous) at the annual MetalMiner Forecasting Workshop on Aug. 25. Week of Aug. 16-20 […]
Global shipping market deteriorates further
The global shipping market has been a depressing topic to report on this year. We have posted two or three updates on the state of play over the last eight months, each time expecting the situation to improve. Depressingly, by the time we come back to it, it has, if anything, gotten worse. Stay up […]
The global shipping market is getting worse rather than better
The global logistics market has gone through a horrible winter. The pandemic caused massive disruption. US and European ports became gummed up with PPE and medical equipment. This resulted in port delays and tens of thousands of containers being out of position at destination when they are needed at origin, further exacerbating a lack of […]
