An extensive matrix of metal theft legislation pending in state legislatures contains a number of common themes, but also suggests something of a “crazy quilt” approach to the issue. Some of the proposed state measures apply only to copper, while others cover only scrap metal or all metals and materials.
Considerable fanfare when the Secondary Metal Theft Prevention Act of 2009 was introduced early in the congressional session—an attempt to set a federal baseline for states rushing headlong to pass legislation of their own—failed to speed the bill through Congress.
Whether it’s a large haul of stainless steel pipe taken from outside Yankee Stadium in New York or some scrap at a construction site in rural West Virginia, metal thefts present more than a supersized headache for the recycling industry.
With so much media attention showered on nickel-metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries that power the electric motors in hybrid vehicles, it’s easy to forget that lead-acid batteries are omnipresent in the hybrid fleet.
As tighter emission control regulations push the automotive industry to create the hybrid and electric fleets of the future, automakers are increasingly focusing their attention on new technologies to meet the increased power demands of those vehicles. Lead-acid batteries may not be mentioned often when automakers talk about the hybrid and electric car fleets of the tomorrow but they remain a core part of emerging designs due to cost efficiency.
The hybridization of America’s auto fleet once threatened to make lead-acid batteries obsolete, but analysts now believe the veteran technology will serve as a workhorse for battery makers to piggyback the evolving hybrid market on.
LONDON: When Graham Tuckwell developed the world’s first gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) in 2003, its prospects seemed grim. Commodities were out of style, gold was trading below $350 an ounce and the concept of gaining direct exposure to metals without trading derivatives or taking physical delivery was, at best, inventive—and, at worst, downright unnerving.
When a recycling executive comes before town planners with a proposal to open a scrapyard, he or she can expect to be questioned at length about its operations.
Polemics about the unsafe handling of U.S. hazardous scrap sent abroad have generally focused on discarded electronics and obsolete ships. A third category may need to be added: lead batteries.
A deep and lingering recession has wrung risk-taking and overbuying out of the metals supply chain. Inventories are lean, consumers are wary and the body blow delivered by the downturn has prompted mills, distributors and OEMs to embrace a ‘new normal.’
The birth of Boomerang Tube marks the return of former Maverick Tube top executive Gregg Eisenberg to the OCTG market. The name of the 400,000-ton-per-year venture taking shape on the banks of the Trinity River in Liberty, Texas, is not an accident.
Building a greenfield oil country tubular goods (OCTG) mill is no easy task even in the best of markets. How did Boomerang Tube LLC, which is bringing a $200-million plant into production in the aftermath of the worst OCTG market in at least a generation, pull it off?
The chairman and chief executive officer of Germany’s Wilh. Schulz GmbH shopped the world—from China and India to Brazil and Oman—to find a home for a new, export-minded $300-million stainless tubular mill. In the end, he opted for Tunica County, Mississippi. Why?
Held in the wake of one of the most wrenching years in steel’s history, AMM ’s second annual State of Steel Conference took a clear-eyed look at the promise and perils that await the industry in the months ahead.
Behavioral psychologists tell us that repetition is important to learning. They also tell us that experiential learning is more powerful than conceptual learning. Simply put, going through one or two experiences is hardly ever sufficient to change our behavior, and reading about others’ experiences is an even weaker influence. Through this lens, the well-documented excesses and mistakes of the most recent commodity cycle are no surprise.
President Obama’s State of the Union speech made both manufacturing and steel front-page news. Reviving the U.S. export economy was a dominant theme in the speech, but one that struck me as an attempt to change the end result of years of dysfunctional policies without addressing the dysfunctional policies themselves—meaning it’s destined to fail.
One of the great advantages of age—and there aren’t very many—is that wisdom and a sense of history are imputed to you. I don’t claim the wisdom, but in looking at the history of the world steel business I can identify several game-changing developments that weren’t necessarily obvious at the time.
One of the highlights at AMM’s State of Steel Conference in January was the on-stage interview with Keith Busse. Steel Dynamics Inc.’s president and chief executive officer put on an assured display, leading one industry veteran to comment that he was “pretty good for an accountant.”
Every month American Metal Market takes a statistical look inside the marketplace.
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