TPT March 2016

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

Sometimes, he told the Trib-Review , “the steel companies announce hikes so their customers can reject the hike rather than asking for a deeper cut.”

Asked whether this signalled stabilisation in domestic steel prices after the sharp drop over the previous year, Andrew Lane, an analyst with Morningstar Inc in Chicago, declined to go that far. But, he told Mr Nixon, “the decline in [import] prices has slowed, which does inspire some hope that prices have bottomed.” The benchmark price for hot-rolled steel was around $374 a ton in the US in late December, down 38 per cent from a year earlier – a fall widely attributed to cheap imports. But the steel industry has begun to win trade cases, which may slow the influx. The Commerce Department on 23 December levied a 256 per cent tax on imports of corrosion-resistant steel from China, and a ruling is expected early this year on tariffs requested by the industry on imports of Chinese-made hot- and cold-rolled steel. Imports of finished steel products were down 15 per cent in November, compared with October, according to preliminary numbers from the American Iron and Steel Institute, a trade group. Even as the major trade cases filed over the summer move forward, however, continuing depressed prices for iron ore and coal help to keep steel prices down. Over the course of 2015 in the US, iron ore was down 39 per cent; coal, 22 per cent. › Another analyst – John Tumazos, of Tumazos Very Independent Research in Holmdel, New Jersey – said the market is not likely to support price hikes and speculated that the AK Steel action might be a defensive move. TUBE END FORMING AV65 SIDE LOADING FOR FAST TOOL CHANGE AND NO LIFTING REQUIRED • Infinitely adjustable expansion & reduction • High production capability

A lawsuit centring on steel purchased for US highway programmes calls attention to haphazard application of the Buy American Act A judge in the District of Columbia takes the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) at its word, even if a purist could object that the word in question – “predominately” – does not exist. Focusing on the term as it was used in a 1997 FHWA memorandum citing the Buy American Act, Judge Amit Mehta on 22 December ruled against the nation’s highway maintenance and safety agency in a case that has brought the domestic preference law back into the news. The Buy American Act, passed in 1933 and overhauled in 1979, requires the government to favour US manufacturers when it makes bulk purchases totalling more than $3,000. But the FHWA in 2012 created an exemption allowing products containing less than 90 per cent steel or iron to be obtained from a foreign source. It also exempts goods available “off- the-shelf” or that are “necessary to encase, assemble, and construct” manufactured products.

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M ARCH 2016