Evening Brief: Kinder surprise — you’re now part owner of a pipeline | Galvanized Round/Square Mild Steel Pipe

EC launches probe on imports of hollow sections, welded tube and pipe steel from Macedonia, Russia and Turkey

29 – The first North Atlantic right whale calf of the winter season was spotted off the Florida coast heading north with its mother, a known resident of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said on Facebook that the two endangered whales were sighted near the mouth of the state’s St. Johns River.

18 – The career of one of Quebec’s most famous professional wrestling families came to an end when Jacques Rougeau, 58, wrestled with his three sons for the first and last time at Stade IGA in Montreal. The Rougeau family was involved in wrestling dating back to the 1940s but Rougeau said his sons didn’t want to carry on with the family business.

ANGANG STEEL CO LTD ORDINARY SHARES H C (OTCMKTS:ANGGF) had an increase of 62.64% in short interest. ANGGF’s SI was 11.50 million shares in January as released by FINRA. Its up 62.64% from 7.07M shares previously. It closed at $0.68 lastly. It is down 0.00% since January 12, 2018 and is . It has by 0.00% the S&P500.

The RfD is highly critical of Eskom’s control of operations and maintenance expenditure, stating that the utility’s consistent over-expenditure against what was allowed showed a “lack of cost-control measures”. “In reaching its decision, Nersa considered Eskom’s unwillingness to implement stringent measures to contain its costs. In light of this, Nersa has adjusted the expenditure, taking this into consideration.”

7 – The Trudeau government announced new rules to make it tougher for federal prisoners serving lengthy sentences to be transferred to Indigenous healing lodges. The change followed a public outcry over the transfer of an Ontario woman, convicted in the 2009 murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford of Woodstock, to a healing lodge in Saskatchewan from a traditional prison. Terry-Lynne McClintic was returned to prison after the changes were announced.

24 – The Lubicon Lake Band reached a long-standing land claims settlement with the Alberta and federal governments for $113 million. The Cree band, which was left out of Treaty 8 when it was negotiated by the British in 1899, was also to receive 246 square kilometres of land in the area of Little Buffalo, northeast of Peace River.

After an initial idea is formed, two critical tasks need to be completed: a project justification study and a patent or literature search of previous work in the field prior to embarking on any development program.

21 – Interpol elected South Korean delegate Kim Jong Yang as the organization’s president, edging out a veteran of Russia’s security services who was strongly opposed by the United States, Britain and other European nations.

Frequently, the main emphasis of a pilot program is to validate the chemistry fundamentals and catalyst performance that are usually not available in literature or predictable via calculation. Understanding reaction kinetics and byproduct formation mechanisms help determine which reactor type is best suited for a given chemistry. Establishing the approach to theoretical thermodynamic equilibrium governs the maximum attainable conversion. While heats of reaction fix the energetics of the reaction system, they also greatly influence reactor type and design.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is the primary stock exchange in Thailand. As of January 31, 2015, nearly 600 companies are already listed on the SET. Consequently, as of the said date, it has a total market capitalization of $460 billion.

Evidence is now emerging that the Trump steel tariffs are beginning to have the desired effect of re-energizing shut-down steel mills and rolling lines, putting American steelworkers back to work, and displacing imports.  It also seems to be doing that without a particularly heavy burden on steel consumers, although the final appraisal of that aspect of steelmaking and steel tariffs is not complete.  This result is unsettling to the “free traders,” mostly because of thinking of political orthodoxy, but again I point out that the USA has not had, if it ever had, “free trade” in basic metals, mostly because there are no comparative advantages.  Instead, offshore (non-US) producers have long held an “absolute advantage,” in that offshore production costs have been lower than US costs in dollar terms, and in an effort to dispose of the chronic over-production of steel (due to large over-capacity),  offshore producers have been dumping their excess into the US market.      To illustrate, I invite readers to ponder the situation now unfolding in Lorain, Ohio.  Lorain has been a US steel-producing location since about 1880; it sits on the South Shore of Lake Erie, near Cleveland.  There are two steel plants in Lorain: the basic steel smelters of Republic Steel, and a processing re-melt and rolling mill operation of U.S. Steel. Both had some or all of their plant shut down in 2017, due to being undercut by dumped imported steel.       The Republic mill manufactured tubed product, basically forms of pipe, and rod product, including quite thin rod.  That sort of steel is used in such items as chicken-coop fencing, industrial fencing, and playground fencing. Tubing can be both thin-wall and thick-wall, and used in such final products as hydraulic lines, and pipe.  Now the Republic plant had shut down several pipe extruding and rolling lines; with the commencement of the tariffs, Republic is starting up those lines and calling back another thousand men.  Previous employment was down to about 660 men, so this is a significant boost in local employment.       The US Steel plant appears to be a rolling and finishing plant for both hot-rolled and cold-rolled products.  I do not have a full picture of the product lines, but given the historical location (near both shipbuilding and rail locomotive manufacture) I would guess it would include plate steel, boiler steel, structural.  That plant also will re-start rolling lines, probably adding many hundreds if not a thousand men.     The impact on Lorain is huge.  Lorain is a city gripped in poverty, with a poverty rate now at some 27% of the population.  Putting several thousand men back to work at steelmaking wages  (these are United Steelworkers Union jobs) dramatically changes that picture.  It also changes the dynamics of the local taxes and payments, putting City Hall on a more solid foundation, able to pay the policemen and the firemen.  So all of that is quite positive.     Who is taking the hit?  I don’t know, but I would assume the company taking the biggest hit is Acelar-Mittal, a dominant steel player headquartered in India.  The dumped product, I speculate, is flowing from Acelor mills in France, the Ruhr, India, and possibly Luxembourg.  I don’t know if any of the displaced product came from the other side of Lake Erie, in Ontario Canada, and probably does not, although the US-owned US Steel Canada might have produced some competing product.  How much tube steel was coming out of China is something the industry insiders would have a handle on, not me.  But in any event, it does choke off the dumped steel, and obliges domestic buyers to switch to US product, which they are now doing.  Bottom line:  Trump’s steel tariff gambit is working.  Now:  is it really hurting steel users?  Stay tuned for a later installment in this saga.