RE: Javathehut10 & MineProfFatbids,
Man you have a strage sense of humor....and a bad memory. Oh...and do you always bet on things of which you have no clue?
Anyway...an excert from a steel authority:
U.S. Steel sees steel prices up on raw material cost
NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) - The head of U.S. Steel Corp said on Tuesday spiraling iron ore costs will push steel prices even higher but he also warned that growing demand is straining miners' capacity to supply raw materials.
"Higher costs for raw materials globally will undoubtedly put pressure on steel prices," Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Surma told Reuters during a steel conference.
Steel prices have soared almost 50 percent this year, as raw material costs continue to climb and global demand shows little sign of abating.
"I don't know where it's going to end, but I think it's a continuation of a trend," Surma said in an interview after giving an address to the American Metal Market's Steel Success Strategies conference. "The relative tightness in raw materials markets is likely to persist for some time."
In his address, Surma said demand for steel is putting unprecedented pressure on the capacity of resource owners to develop the quantities of raw materials necessary to meet it.
"Over the next three to five years, the price of raw materials may begin to stabilize, and perhaps even recede. But today we have a new concern," he said, noting that the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) estimates world demand for finished steel at 1.4 billion net tons in 2008.
"If demand grows next year by roughly 6 percent as IISI predicts, and if we intend to meet it through integrated production, we're talking about producing approximately 90 million more net tons of steel in a single year.
"That would require another 110 million tons of iron ore pellets - about five times the annual output of our company's Minntac and Keetac mines combined," Surma said.
U.S. Steel produces 31.7 million tons annually.
Ninety million more tons of steel would take 36 million more tons of coking coal, requiring 50 million more tons of metallurgical coal. The largest metallurgical coal mine in the world produces just under 17 million tons annually, he said.
Badog