TPT July 2015

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Global Marketplace
July 2015 73
For his part, Mr Longhi explained the poor performance of
USS by citing the battering sustained by the American steel
industry from metal dumped in the US at less than its cost of
production. The US Department of Commerce supports that
view. Through February the department reported that steel
imports to the US rose 25 per cent from the same period a
year earlier. “Illegal dumping in this market is ongoing and it
has to end,” Mr Longhi said. “We need legislative relief that is
sustainable.”
On another front, USS is in the midst of a multi-year cost-
cutting programme. Dave Burritt, the company’s chief financial
officer, told analysts that the programme, known as the
Carnegie Way, will yield savings of $340 million in 2015. As
for the company’s struggling Canadian branch, in bankruptcy
protection since September, its financial results are no longer
included in the figures reported by the American firm.
“They are going through their motions to get their issues
resolved,” Mr Longhi said. “We will keep an eye on it and see
how it goes.” Mr Arnold rather pointedly observed that the
parent firm’s stake in the Canadian restructuring is more than
a matter of monitoring from a distance: USS believes it is owed
more than $2.2 billion by its unit in Canada.
tHe Common enemY: ImPorts
That is not to say that AMD, while much more comfortably
fixed, is entirely worry-free. Mr Donnelly said the company is
facing “a huge wave of retirements in the next few years” as
baby boomers retire, leaving a void in skilled trades workers
and others. Another concern is that auto makers, accounting
for 40 per cent of AMD’s business, continually demand lighter-
weight but no less strong grades of steel as they strive for
greater fuel efficiency. The search for those materials keeps
85 people busy in the company’s research and development
labs. “Aluminium is a huge threat to us,” the AMD chief told
Mr Arnold. “There is a lot of intensity in the research area to
combat alternative materials.” But these are concerns that
USS can only envy.
› The challenge faced by the two companies together is
that posed by imports, with the situation for Canadian
steelmakers not much better than what confronts their
counterparts to the south. Mr Donnelly told his Chamber of
Commerce audience, “Imports remain a huge issue in North
America.” The Hamilton Spectator reported that the Canadian
Steel ProducersAssociation backs that claim. Its data indicates
that Canada’s demand for steel is roughly 16.6 million metric
tons a year. Imports of 9.9 million mt give foreign producers
about 60 per cent of that market.
Other news of steel . . .
› Grain-orientated electrical steel (GOES), a fairly niche
product made by only 16 producers worldwide, is
essential to the manufacture of transformer cores, and the
European transformer industry has expressed deep concern
about anti-dumping duties imposed by the European Union on