wiredInUSA december 2018

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

Change for the rebar market

Gerdau Long Steel North America has completed the sale of four US rebar mills and all 33 of its rebar fabrication locations to Commercial Metals Company (CMC). According to a KeyBanc analyst, the deal gives CMC additional annual rolling capacity of approximately 2.5 million tons, along with an incremental 2.7 million tons of melt capacity, which gives the company an approximate total of 7.2 million tons of global melt capacity at the close of the transaction. CMC is said to be honoring previous pricing agreements from Gerdau in some cases, but immediately transitioning others to their

own pricing. One source said they were switching to daily pricing with CMC, away from the longer-termagreements they were getting from Gerdau. “It seems like [transaction changes are] on a case-by-case basis,” commented one Midwest US buyer. “We’re just transitioning a lot of logistical things with [CMC] right now, it’s not too bad. If it were the spring, it would be worse.” He added that he had heard of employee turnover between the mills during the first week of the transition, and predicted more to come as things settle. “I think there’s going to be a lot of duplication [of personnel], in the southeast especially,” he added.

wiredInUSA - December 2018

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