TPT January 2008

From the AmericaS

6 per cent, to $4.35 billion from $4.11 billion in third-quarter 2006. The results included a $27 million pretax charge related to inventory acquired with the welded pipe maker Lone Star Technologies. During the quarter, USS also said it would pay about $1.1 billion for the Canadian steel maker Stelco. AK Steel is looking very much healthier AK Steel Holding Corp said October 23 that its third-quarter profit more than quadrupled from the same quarter of 2006, when the company was in the midst of a nearly 13-month lockout. The West Chester, Ohio-based steel maker reported net earnings of $108.4 million for the quarter ended September 30, compared with $26 million in third-quarter 2006. Sales totaled $1.72 billion for the quarter, up 11 per cent from $1.55 billion a year before. For the first nine months of 2007, AK made $281 million, compared with $61.3 million the year before. Higher shipments and selling prices, as well as a tax benefit, boosted profits, the company said. AK Steel (formerly Armco) makes flat-rolled carbon steel, stainless and electrical steel, and carbon and stainless tubular products. The company’s average selling price for steel was $1,074 per ton in the third quarter of 2007, up 5 per cent from the year-before period. Shipments were up 5 per cent in the quarter to 1.6 million tons. Since ending the lockout at its Middletown Works, and cutting some 1,000 jobs, the company settled a lawsuit over health care costs for Middletown retirees and created a $633 million, retiree-managed

trust fund that relieved it of about half of its $2.1 billion legacy costs. Recently, AK announced a $180 million investment in equipment to lower production costs and increase capacity at two specialty steel operations in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Elsewhere in metals. . . › US aluminium maker Alcoa said on October 4 that it would sell its automotive castings business by the end of 2007. Pittsburgh- based Alcoa also said it planned to revamp its electrical and electronic solutions business in the Americas and Europe. Together with the recent sale of Alcoa’s stake in the Chinese aluminium maker Chalco for $1.8 billion, these moves are intended to enable the company to focus on its core business of mining bauxite and producing alumina. Mining Free precious-metals mining on US public lands is challenged A bill in the US House of Representatives would change a 135-year- old law to require the hard-rock mining industry to begin paying royalties on gold, silver, and other minerals extracted from lands held in the public trust. Characterizing the existing policy as “a pirate story with the public-lands profiteers robbing the American people blind” , Rep. Nick Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of

104 ›

J anuary 2008

www.read-tpt.com