WCA January 2012

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2012 36
From theamericas
Mr Bradford told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the
challenge for steel makers will be to realise higher profit
margins on the next generation of steels than they did from
the lower-grade steels to be replaced. “They may be able to
make more money if they sell less pounds,” he said. “That’s
going to be the trick.” (“Aluminum and Steel Slug It Out to
Become the Lighter, Stronger Metal for Cars,” 9th October).
The Post-Gazette’s Len Boselovic reported that the two
industries are pouring millions of dollars into new mills
capable of making the lighter, stronger metals needed to cut
the weight of a car by about 10 per cent, or 400 pounds.
According to Ducker Worldwide, a research firm that
advises both steel and aluminium producers, the reduction
is essential if the proposed fleet standard of 54.5 miles
per gallon of fuel is to be met. Already about 30% of car
hoods and 20% of bumper beams are fashioned out of
aluminium, and the Ducker consultants forecast greater
inroads for the light metal in the years ahead. They estimate
that the average vehicle made in North America will contain
550 pounds of aluminium by 2025, up from 343 pounds in
2012. In this scenario, aluminium will account for 16 per
cent of the weight of a light vehicle, about double its current
aluminium content. Steel’s share will drop from 58 to 46 per
cent, the research firm said.
Even so, Ducker’s Richard Schultz, who managed Alcoa’s
worldwide automotive business in the 1990s, declined to
sound “any kind of death knell” for the steel makers. While
acknowledging the steady incursions of the aluminium
producers, he observed, “Vehicles will still be predominantly
steel 20 years from now.”
❖ But the rivalry is on. “We’ve got physics on our side at
the end of the day,” Alcoa’s Randall Scheps, who heads
the aluminium industry’s Aluminium Transportation
Group, told the Post-Gazette. “We can build a lighter
car than steel can.” The Post-Gazette article made
it abundantly clear that steel makers take the threat
seriously; but they claim a strong advantage from
having been the partners of the auto makers from the
beginning. By steel industry calculations, the steel
content of cars actually notched up in recent years,
from 63 per cent to 65 per cent. In the view of Lawrence
Kavanagh of the Steel Market Development Institute,
“We’ve not lost. We’ve gained.”
❖ Mr Boselovic of the Post-Gazette believes that both
industries are aware they must work closely with car
makers to provide metals for the efficient design and
engineering of lighter-weight vehicles. Of the current
automotive-related projects of both sets of metal
producers, he mentioned these:
❖ US Steel and its joint venture partner, Kobe Steel
of Japan, are investing $400 million in a new steel
processing line at their plant in Leipsic, Ohio. The
equipment will alternately heat and cool advanced
steel sheet to give it the strength and flexibility needed
to shape it into automotive components. Michael
S Williams, who directs US Steel’s North American
sheet operations, said the new equipment, capable of
producing 500,000 tons annually, will go into production
in early 2013;
❖ Russian steel maker OAO Severstal is revamping
its Dearborn, Michigan, plant to produce the next
generation of automotive steels, a project financed by a
$730 million loan from the US Department of Energy;
❖ On the aluminium side, Novelis is investing $200 million
to boost production of aluminium automotive sheet at its
Oswego, New York, plant, citing growing demand from
its customers;
❖ Alcoa in September announced plans to invest $300
million to enable its Davenport, Iowa, works to keep
up with automotive demand. The decision was based
on business already on the books, but Mr Boselovic
said that Alcoa expects growth beyond that. “These
are long-term decisions,” Mr Scheps of the Aluminium
Transportation Group – who worked with the auto
industry before joining Alcoa six years ago – told the
Post-Gazette. “These are assets that are going to be in
place for 50 years.”
In brief . . .
❖ Thieves in North Beaver Township, Pennsylvania,
brought a new brazenness to metal theft by dismantling,
with the use of a blowtorch, and removing a 40x15-foot
steel bridge weighing 40 tons and valued at an
estimated $100,000. Pennsylvania State Police said
the privately owned structure, an old railroad bridge in
an industrial park, was removed in the period 16th-28th
September. A resident of the rural area about 50 miles
northeast of Pittsburgh, near the Ohio border, told
CNN affiliate WTAE-TV, “Its old I-beams are probably
hundreds of pounds per foot.”
The owner, a development company, told local media
that it had recently closed off public access to the
bridge, which dated to the early 1900s, because of
reports of copper thefts in the vicinity. The alleged
thieves – two New Castle, Pennsylvania, brothers
apparently more clever with their hands than with their
brains – were caught. The 15.5 tons of steel they sold
piecemeal to a scrap dealer had netted them a little over
$5,100 before employees of the scrap yard supplied the
police with information leading to their apprehension.
As reported by ABC News Radio (18th October), the
brothers face felony charges including criminal mischief,
theft, receiving stolen property, and criminal conspiracy,
and are being held on $25,000 bail. While rare enough,
bridge theft is not unheard of. Citing a report from 2008
by Britain’s Daily Mail , CNN recalled that a group of
thieves in Russia dismantled and hauled away a 38-foot,
200-ton steel bridge in just one night.
Business
Bucking the tide, Canada does
very nearly everything right
Kurt Badenhausen, who covers “data-driven stories” for
Forbes, observed that, during the run-up to every US
presidential election, countless Americans threaten to
move to Canada if their candidate is beaten. While few
of them follow through, the 2011 instalment of Forbes’s
annual “Best Countries for Business” suggests that a