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An uncertain recovery

November 20, 2009 - 00:00 GMT

North American steelmakers are carefully assessing how they should respond to the fragile economic recovery. Difficult decisions will have to be made whether to restart, shutter or even sell off idled capacity, reports Myra Pinkham.

At first glance it seems that the North American steel industry has undergone some significant changes since the end of June, when executives gathered in New York to discuss their ‘survival’ strategies at the American Metal Market/World Steel Dynamics Steel Survival Strategies XXIV conference. Raw steel output has increased every week since then. Steelmaker order books are fuller. Transaction prices are higher. Customers have stopped destocking. Several idled mills have been restarted. But all of this is rather deceptive, steel mill executives and other industry observers say. True steel demand is not all that different to when the conference was in session and everyone still believes that the recovery of the domestic steel industry will still be painfully slow, and with many bumps along the road. The strategies needed for recovery really have not changed much at all. If anything fundamental has changed since the June conference, it is that...

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