Sandra,
The thing about Nucor is that these guys are very shrewd. This announcement, in my opinion, is a longer term strategy to replace the integrated mills inefficiencies, believing at the same time that the EAF can work its way up the quality scale of steel production. Note that David Joseph, under an agency agreement, not a brokerage agreement, is Nucors sole supplier of scrap. RECY fits in here as a supplier to David Joseph. However, Nucor is no dummy. Remember they have a DRI plant in Trinidad. Note also where Nucor places its plants. Near ports,near rails, near scrap. I read a recent article which interviewed Randy Mott, plant manager at Nucor Berkeley, SC. It was partularly enlightening to me that he mentioned buying pig iron and DRI from the northeast as well as scrap locally in the Carolina's. Steel Dynamics, I think, just stated that they were going on line with a DRI facility that would supply their internal needs for feeder to charges. The point is that Nucor, along with the big players in EAF, arent going to let scrap prices escalate to unreasonable levels. DRI, while in its infancy, will continue to grow. I think production now is around $120.00 per ton. And if scrap prices go too high pig iron will flood into this country. It is going to be very interesting to watch all this unfold.
stephen
PS - I am currently on the sidelines but watching very carefully. |
