Stamping Out a Living

The Globe and Mail
Esterhazy, Sask. � All 72 trapped Saskatchewan miners were brought safely to the surface early Monday after spending more than 30 hours cut off underground by fire and smoke.
A spokesman for Mosaic, the company that runs the K2 mine near Esterhazy in southeastern Saskatchewan, said that the remaining five had farthest to go to reach the escape route. They reached the surface shortly before 10 a.m. EST

People hoping for some relief from copper prices may have to put their hopes on the back burner a while longer. ...
Bloomberg.com
Copper may rise for a second consecutive week on speculation that funds are still increasing their holdings of the metal on expectations supply will continue to fall short of demand.
Eight out of 12 analysts, traders and investors surveyed by Bloomberg News on Jan. 26 and 27 said the metal will gain. Two expected a decline and two little change. Copper reached a record last week, bringing gains in the past year to 57 percent. Global demand has outpaced supply since 2002.
``The rally is not over yet,'' Francisco Blanch, a commodity strategist of Merrill Lynch & Co. in London, wrote in a Jan. 27 report. Gains in prices will come from ``unforeseen supply disruptions, ongoing bottlenecks at various smelters and critically low inventory levels.''

Labels: Copper

Yahoo! News
The head of European steel maker Arcelor said that the company had been prepared for nearly a year to fight a hostile takeover bid which Mittal Steel sprang on Friday with an offer of 18.6 billion euros (22.7 billion dollars).
Arcelor chief executive Guy Dolle, speaking on French radio station Europe 1, said: 'We have known for a year that it (Mittal) was interested in us.'
Arcelor had been 'prepared for this attack since last spring', he said referring to the bid which would create by far the biggest steel producer in the world.
'We are ready,' he said. 'We have a plan that enables us to resist.'
He added: 'The fight has begun, and we are going to win it. It will be long.'
Arcelor did not need Mittal Steel, Dolle argued. 'We think that the future of Arcelor is much better for its shareholders and employees if it remains alone rather than being allied to Mittal.'

The Tocqueville Connection
European steel maker Arcelor came out fighting and determined to win on Monday in the face of a hostile takeover bid by Mittal Steel as France voiced deep concern about the fate of the European steel industry.
Mittal Steel's attack on Arcelor, launched Friday in London, moved to Paris where the parties held duelling press conferences and the French government said it feared there was no hard evidence the two groups could be successfully combined.
The head of Mittal Steel, Lakshmi Mittal, met here with French Finance Minister Thierry Breton and sought to allay fears that his 18.6-billion-euro (22.7-billion-dollar) bid for Luxembourg-based Arcelor would mean job cuts.
Mittal told a press conference his company was not in the habit of acquiring steel-making plants in order to close them and pledged that no employment reductions were planned.

Yahoo News!
Shares of global steel makers surged after Arcelor rejected Mittal's hostile $23 billion bid, and both sides prepared to win support from shareholders in a public relations clash on Monday in Paris.
A deal that could put many of Arcelor's 28,500 French jobs at risk also poses a sharp test for French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's policy of "economic patriotism," especially with employment likely to be a key issue in French presidential elections in 2007.
The board at Arcelor, the world's second largest steelmaker, unanimously rejected the bid by the world's top steelmaker on Sunday, but Mittal and Arcelor both scheduled news conferences in the French capital on Monday, seeking to bolster their positions.

It's Deja Vue all over again.

No, I didn't post an old article from a few days ago again by mistake.

This is *another* ThyssenKrupp offer to buy Dofasco, part of the Mittal Steel purchase of Arcelor ...

Bloomberg.com
ThyssenKrupp AG, four days after saying the purchase of Dofasco Inc. would be too costly, agreed to acquire the Canadian steelmaker for C$5.26 billion ($4.6 billion) as part of Mittal Steel Co.'s hostile bid for rival Arcelor SA.
Arcelor this month agreed to buy Dofasco for C$71 a share, beating an offer from ThyssenKrupp. Mittal today made an unsolicited bid of 18.6 billion euros ($22.7 billion) for Arcelor. If the attempt succeeds, Mittal will sell Dofasco to ThyssenKrupp for C$68 a share, ThyssenKrupp Chief Executive Officer Ekkehard Schulz told 4,600 investors at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Bochum today.
The sale would be ``a good deal'' for ThyssenKrupp because it would help the company pursue ``promising options in North America,'' said Klaus Breil, who helps manage investments of $7.3 billion for Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt.
Shares of ThyssenKrupp in Frankfurt rose 1.64 euros, or 8.1 percent, to 21.95 euros, the biggest percentage increase since March 2000 and the highest price since May of that year. The stock has gained 25 percent this year, valuing the company at 11 billion euros.

Labels: Dofasco

This was enough to halt trading of Dofasco today on the Toronto Stock Market
Reuters Canada
Mittal Steel moved to strengthen its grip on the global steel industry with a $23 billion hostile bid for main rival Arcelor in a deal that would also hand Canada's Dofasco Inc. to ThyssenKrupp.

Labels: Dofasco

MEPS STEEL NEWS
In the flat products sector, North American strip mill product prices should be reasonably firm over the next two months. However, we expect Asian imports to be arriving in large quantities before the Winter is out. The North American premium over Asian values is likely to be eroded. We forecast transaction values in North America falling quite quickly through Springtime and into Summer. It is possible that the reductions could be hastened by lower scrap surcharges.
We expect prices to stabilise at their reduced levels later in the year. We believe that more discipline will be exerted in the supply situation in Asia as the year progresses. If not, a wave of antidumping cases will be brought - thus forcing the issue.

It seems that ThyssenKrupp may go hunting elsewhere ...

Who knew that we were in the "lucrative North American market"?

Bloomberg.com
ThyssenKrupp AG, after bowing out of the bidding for Canadian steel producer Dofasco Inc., may seek to acquire other companies in North America to expand outside Europe, analysts said.
``This is not the last we've heard of ThyssenKrupp,'' said Michelle Applebaum, an independent analyst [...] who has followed the steel industry for almost 25 years.
ThyssenKrupp will collect a C$215 million breakup fee when its offer expires Jan. 26. The German company now may turn to other potential acquisitions, such as AK Steel Holding Corp., the biggest U.S. maker of automotive steel, or U.S. Steel Corp., the country's largest producer, said Applebaum and Chuck Bradford, a steel analyst with Soleil Securities in New York.

Thyssen loses Dofasco but still aims to expand
International Herald Tribune
The German steel maker ThyssenKrupp said on Tuesday that it would seek new opportunities to expand in North America after it quit the bidding for the Canadian company Dofasco, which was acquired by another European giant, Arcelor, after a two-month takeover battle.

ThyssenKrupp's chief executive, Ekkehard Schulz, said his company would consider building a new steel mill in North America, cooperating with other manufacturers or attempting a different acquisition.

ThyssenKrupp's board will consider these options at a meeting in May, Schulz said. "It's too early to call this a defeat," he added.

Financial markets, which had punished ThyssenKrupp shares as the prospective price for Dofasco increased, cheered the company's discipline in pulling back from the acquisition.

ThyssenKrupp late Monday said it would not top Arcelor's bid of 71 Canadian dollars, or $61.67, per share. Schulz said on Tuesday that the bid was "not economically justifiable" above a price of 68 dollars per share. ThyssenKrupp stock closed up 54 cents at E19.26, or $23.66, in Frankfurt trading Tuesday.

Shares of Arcelor, which will pay 5.5 billion dollars for Dofasco, were up 70 cents at E21.61.

The wrangle over Dofasco highlighted how major industry players, notably Arcelor and Mittal Steel of the Netherlands, appear determined to bulk up in an effort to harness economies of scale and negotiate better prices with iron ore producers.

"The global consolidation process in the steel industry is continuing," Schulz said.

For ThyssenKrupp, that means finding a stronger foothold in the lucrative North American market, he said.

Although American automakers including Ford and General Motors are slashing payrolls and production capacity to cut costs, selling automotive steel in what is still the world's largest car market remains an attractive proposition. "Better times will come," said Christian König, a ThyssenKrupp spokesman.

Labels: Dofasco

Yahoo! News
The sole survivor of a mine explosion that killed 12 fellow miners emerged from a light coma Wednesday but still cannot speak, his doctor said.
McCloy, 26, of Simpson, may have suffered brain damage from the carbon monoxide exposure in the mine, but the extent of any damage is not yet known. He has developed a slight fever but remains in fair condition.

Truth is, I missed this first time around.

So did all the mainstream media, it seems.

Thanks to NAM for picking it up.

As you'll see in this item from Bloomberg News, People's Bank of China Assistant Governor Ma Delun said on Friday that the market is determining the value of the Chinese currency (yuan), that it is not being manipulated by the Chinese government. Looks like Governor Ma may have had too much maotai.
The Chinese have been amassing their reserves of US dollars in an effort to keep the yuan deliberately undervalued. Ma claimed that the currency wasn't to blame for the US trade deficit, adding that, ' Workers' pay in China is 1/33rd of that of a U.S. worker. The U.S. has to accept this global reallocation of industries.'

Monday:

Reuters.com
Canadian steelmaker Dofasco said on Monday it agreed to terminate its agreement with ThyssenKrupp after the German industrial group waived its right to raise a C$68 per share bid for Dofasco to match a higher offer.

Tuesday:
Arcelor agrees to buy Dofasco
Arcelor said on Tuesday it had agreed to acquire Dofasco for C$71 per share in a cash deal valuing the Canadian steel maker at C$5.6 billion.

Arcelor made the announcement in a joint statement with Dofasco after German rival ThyssenKrupp withdrew from the bidding war.

Wednesday:
Questions linger after Dofasco bidding war
Toronto Star
Dofasco embraced a $5.5 billion takeover bid by Arcelor SA yesterday but questions remain about relations between the two companies after months spent fighting off the European steel giant's advances.

[...]
After months of siding with Germany's ThyssenKrupp, Dofasco CEO Don Pether put a positive spin on the Arcelor takeover.

"Certainly Dofasco's management team is fully committed and excited about the opportunity this presents and committed to the success and sustainability of the organization going forward," Pether told reporters on a conference call.

But Dofasco's decision to draw ThyssenKrupp into the bidding fray as its white knight may result in some strained relationships with Arcelor, said Chuck Bradford, an analyst with New York's Soleil Securities.

Labels: Dofasco

The auto industry seems to be going through a large implosion recently ...

Lansing State Journal
General Motors Corp. will idle 240 workers at the Lansing Metal Center after Feb. 10.
The world's largest automaker said in November that it will close the metal stamping plant with 1,200 workers sometime this year. The layoffs are the first reductions at the plant since then.

MORE PAIN AHEAD: Ford lays out deep cuts, but details unclear
Detroit Free Press

This is only the beginning.

Ford Motor Co. workers who thought Monday's Way Forward plan would resolve their anxieties and questions about the company's future -- by identifying which plants might be closed, which executives might leave or what new products the company might sell in the future -- were left hanging.

Indeed, the Dearborn-based automaker, which announced Monday a $2-billion profit for 2005, laid out the framework for a bold 6-year plan that promises to slash costs deeper than expected to restore profitability to its struggling North American operations within two years. Those operations posted a pretax loss of $1.6 billion last year.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Ford, determined to protect the company founded by his great-grandfather, said the automaker would idle 14 manufacturing facilities, including seven assembly plants and, locally, the Wixom Assembly Plant. From 25,000 to 30,000 factory jobs and 12% of the company's officers will be cut by 2012.

However, that plan is still a work in progress. Ford identified just one-third of the plants it intends to idle Monday, because it has not yet decided on the others. Two more assembly plants will be identified by the end of the year, while the remaining cuts will be announced later.
[...]
The facilities targeted for closure so far include assembly plants in Wixom, St. Louis, Mo., and Atlanta. Two parts plants also were named, Batavia Transmission in Ohio and Windsor Casting in Ontario.

Production at one plant, St. Thomas Assembly in Ontario, also will be reduced to one shift.

Interesting analysis from the Globe and Mail ... Will Bill be able to go the distance?

Analysts ask whether Bill is Ford tough
In his senior thesis at Princeton University many years ago, William Clay Ford Jr. defended his great-grandfather Henry Ford's hard-nosed stand against unionism in the 1930s.

Now, the scion of the world's most famous automotive family may be headed for his own showdown with the United Auto Workers, and analysts question whether he has the toughness to follow in the founder's footsteps.
[...]
He acknowledged the company must shed its plodding style and become far more innovative in order to start making cars that North American drivers will want to buy, with a cost structure that allows it to compete with foreign auto makers.

"My great-grandfather once said of the first car he ever built: 'If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse,' " Mr. Ford told a news conference in Detroit.

"At Ford, we're going to figure out what people want before they even know it -- and then we're going to give it to them. It's where we began and it's where we must go."

Bloomberg.com: Canada
Canada's steel hub of Hamilton, Ontario, has plenty of reasons to watch the billion-dollar takeover battle for steelmaker Dofasco Inc. Workers at Stelco Inc. hope it's a sign their employer, heading out of bankruptcy, will be next to draw buyer interest.
``It'd be a fresh start,'' said Harry Fitzpatrick, 53, a carpenter for 30 years at Stelco. He boarded a bus in Hamilton this week to attend the company's bankruptcy hearing at a Toronto court.
Stelco is ready to emerge from two years of bankruptcy protection in March, just as global steel producers such as Arcelor SA seek additional capacity to meet increasing demand from China and India. That puts it in a better position to be sold, says Peter Warrian, a senior fellow at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.

Labels: Dofasco, stelco

Yahoo! News
An Ontario court has approved Stelco's restructuring plan, paving the way for the Hamilton, Ontario-based steel producer to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

Labels: stelco

USATODAY.com
Rescue teams searched deep inside a coal mine Friday for two miners missing after an underground conveyer belt caught fire. Nineteen others had reached the surface safely and waited in a church with relatives in a scene reminiscent of another West Virginia mine disaster less than three weeks earlier.

2 Missing After Fire in W. Virginia Coal Mine

LA Times

Fighting fire and smoke, rescuers rushed to find two trapped coal miners today, the second such deadly race against time in West Virginia this month.

At least 20 teams were working at the Alma No. 1 Mine in Melville, W. Va., seeking the pair after a fire Thursday night. The search was being hindered by smoke and the need to fight the fire, state officials said at an evening briefing.


And, following up on the previous mining accident,
McCloy Eats Solid Food

Doctors at WVU Hospitals say Randal McCloy, the sole survivor of the Sago mine accident, has eaten a cracker, the first solid food since the accident.

West Virginia University Hospitals posts updates on his condition here.

Scientific American.com
Copper is used in everything from automobiles to ordnance. Copper allows electricity to be generated, transported and conducted to the various outlets in a modern home. Copper is also relatively scarce compared to other metals like iron or aluminum that make up a good portion of the earth itself. So copper serves as an excellent metallic bellwether for potential future resource scarcity, according to a group of researchers who compiled data on its extraction, use, recycling and discard to estimate whether there is enough copper available to make a developed standard of living available to all the world's people. The short answer is: no.
[...]
While some theorists had predicted that metal use would decline as economies advanced beyond building metallic infrastructure, the teams' data showed that overall copper use in the U.S. climbed to a high of 238 kilograms per person by 1999. Declines in areas like manufacturing and railroads were more than offset by increases in areas like motor vehicles and domestic devices. In fact, residents of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. required an average of 170 kilograms of copper per person. Multiply that by overall population estimates of 10 billion people by 2100 and the world will require 1.7 billion metric tons of copper by that date--more than even the most generous estimate of available resources.

Labels: Copper

Metal stampers mostly buy steel from service centers, who provide steel processing services like cutting of steel slabs, tubes and bars and slitting of coil stock. While there are relatively few steel mills in North America these days, there are hundreds of service centers.

Yahoo! Finance
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. has agreed to buy Earle M. Jorgensen Co. in a $643 million cash-and-stock deal.
The deal, announced Wednesday, will bring EMJ's 39 metal processing facilities in the United States and Canada under Reliance's umbrella. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter.

And some analysis:

Reliance Steel-EMJ deal seen opening flood

Reliance's acquisition [...] could open the floodgates for a wave of consolidation among service centers, the key middlemen in the steel industry, analysts said on Wednesday.

"There are a lot more (deals) to do," Charles Bradford, of Bradford Research/Soleil, said.

Another analyst, who requested anonymity, said: "This has been a consolidating industry for 25 years and as more (steel) mills consolidate there will be even more among service centers."

So-called service centers are essentially middlemen, who buy and sell steel, between the big steel manufacturers and end-users. They hold steel inventories for sellers and sometimes do process steel to specifications for buyers.

"There are lots of economies to be made by being less fragmented," said Bradford. "Often service centers will deliver steel."

There are thousands of service centers, comprising some 40 percent of the steel market. But it is fragmented, with few of the companies having annual sales over $100 million.

Known around the world as the steel opera that never ends, the Stelco saga continues to amaze and amuse (but only those far enough away from it to be uninvolved).

Stelco owners show Pratt the door:
Globeadvisor.com
After two tumultuous years running Stelco Inc., Courtney Pratt will soon step down as chief executive officer at the request of the company's new controlling shareholders.
'I've learned a whole lot,' Mr. Pratt said yesterday with a chuckle. 'Because this has, in many ways, been an absolutely unique situation.'
Few would argue with that. Mr. Pratt became Stelco's CEO on Jan. 1, 2004, with no experience in the steel industry beyond sitting on the company's board. Three weeks later, Mr. Pratt put Stelco, Canada's largest steel maker, into bankruptcy protection, citing a $1.25-billion pension shortfall and competitive pressures.

A guy named Bill Cara has written a number of blog articles about the Stelco situation. He claims the whole bankruptcy thing is a fraud to steal from the shareholders ... I don't know enough to evaluate his arguments.
January 05, 2005 Canadian Equities: Stelco at the Eleventh Hour
March 03, 2005 A great day for Stelco
March 31, 2005 Stelco Court Decision
April 11, 2005 Stelco report
May 11, 2005 Stelco joke continues
September 02, 2005 Where are the securities regulators in the Stelco fiasco?
October 25, 2005 A call for integrity and fairness
November 23, 2005 Stelco crooks can now be rounded up

It appears that the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada agrees with him (and even supplied some of the information for his arguments). Take that for what it's worth. It all makes great reading.

Meanwhile, the Hamilton Spectator has been reporting that restructuring approval is expected by the end of this week.

Lawyers for the company and its new lenders reached agreement late last night to put new loans ahead of pension obligations in the event of a new restructuring. That cleared the way to finalize the agreements that will let the struggling steelmaker out of bankruptcy protection.

Justice James Farley is now expected to approve the restructuring plan by the end of the week.

Lenders, led by Tricap Management Limited, had been demanding extra security for their loans in the event Stelco buckles again in the steel industry's next down cycle.

Labels: stelco

Yahoo! News
The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that US industrial production rose 0.6 percent in December as the rate of factory use hit a five-year high. The gain was stronger than the average 0.5 percent expected on Wall Street.
Capacity utilization, an indication of slack in the industrial sector, soared to 80.7 percent, the highest since October 2000.
Analysts said the increase in capacity utilization may prompt concerns on the Fed's rate-setting Open Market Committee, which warned in December that decreasing slack in the economy could fuel inflationary pressures.
A similarly solid picture emerged from the Empire State survey on manufacturing in the New York region in January.
While manufacturing activity in the New York area expanded at a slightly slower pace than expected, analysts said details of the report suggested greater strength than intimated by the decline in the headline index, with price pressures remaining elevated and new orders holding steady.

Some Canadian election coverage related to manufacturing, to tarifs, etc.

Layton promises to fight for forestry workers
CTV.ca
NDP Leader Jack Layton made a play for votes in northern Ontario as he promised to fight for workers in the forestry sector.
'People here are living on pins and needles when it comes to the future of the whole wood sector,' he said Sunday.
The region has seen job losses in both the lumber and pulp-and-paper sectors due to the effects of the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. and a cost-price squeeze in the pulp sector.
If the Americans didn't show movement on the softwood lumber issue, Layton said he slap an export tax on Canadian oil and gas destined for the U.S. market.

2006: The most calamitous year yet?:
WorldNetDaily
Barring extraordinary good luck and/or the undeserved mercy of God, Canada today verges on what could prove the most calamitous year in its 139-year history as a confederated state. It has five central problems and is effectively confronting none of them.
The first is the economic uncertainty of its manufacturing industries, centered almost entirely in southern Ontario and Quebec. These, like those in the United States, are facing devastating competition from Asia. The Canadian tendency, however, will be to subsidize, rather than downsize, using federal money to do it.
Where will the money come from? That's the second problem. It will have to come from booming Alberta, whose tar sands represent a fossil fuel reserve rivaling even that of the Middle East.

As some of you I am sure know, we're having a federal election here in Canada.

I'd like to hear anyone's opinions about what the various possible election outcomes are going to do for manufacturing in Canada. Also what effect will it have on the value of the Canadian dollar. Use the comment link to add your comments ... tell us what part of manufacturing you're in and the rationale behind your answer.

CNN.com
Arcelor, the world's second biggest steel maker, said on Monday it planned to raise its offer for Dofasco to 71 Canadian dollars per share, after rival bidder Germany's ThyssenKrupp had increased its offer to C$68 to value the Canadian steel maker at C$5.3 billion ($4.6 billion).

Labels: Dofasco

Part of the roof collapsed Tuesday at a coal mine in eastern Kentucky, killing Cornelius Yates, 44. No one else was harmed. Yates was operating a roof bolting machine at the time.

People's Daily Online
China is to cut the annual production capacity by 100 million tons of iron and 55 million tons of steel in the coming five years, in a bid to cool down the overheated steel industry

Yet another Byrd distortion of the marketplace ...

Fortune Magazine via CNN Money
This year's hurricanes were strong enough to knock out levees, flatten buildings, and flood cities along the Gulf Coast. But they couldn't blow away the high trade barriers that are keeping Mexican cement out of the U.S. And that could make efforts to rebuild New Orleans and other devastated areas much more expensive, as contractors scramble to find supplies.
Home builders, general contractors, and concrete mixers in the U.S. have been complaining about a shortage of cement for the past two years. Mexico has an excess capacity of more than eight million tons, but a 55% tariff on cement imported from America's neighbor to the south has effectively kept the product out. The tariff was imposed in 1990, after Mexican manufacturers started selling cement in the U.S. for as little as half as much as they charged in Mexico. In purely economic terms, that made sense: Mexican producers had excess capacity, and the U.S. had excess demand. But in international trade terms, selling products for cheap abroad is considered dumping, which is grounds for levying tariffs. A group of cement suppliers with plants in southern states from Georgia to California petitioned U.S. trade authorities and were rewarded with the biggest tariff ever imposed in an anti-dumping case.

Insiders say that so long as the Byrd Amendment promises money to the winner of an anti-dumping case, the Southern Tier has no reason to allow the Department of Commerce to negotiate away the right to impose tariffs. "I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football," says Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Association of General Contractors, which wants the cement tariffs suspended. "There will always be another meeting."

Just when you thought (hoped) that copper couldn't go any higher ...
Yahoo! News
Prices in the US rose overnight on news of the Codelco strike. Company officials claimed that output had not been hurt by the strike but there was widespread concern in the market over possible disruptions to supply from Codelco which produced 1.84m tonnes of copper in 2004.
Copper's gains rubbed off on aluminium which increased marginally from the seventeen year peak reached on Wednesday. Three-month aluminimum traded at $2,309.5.

Labels: Copper

The next generation of jet fighter aircraft could fly farther and faster thanks to a new high-strength aluminum alloy prepared at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. The new alloy is one material being developed for use in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a cutting-edge aircraft that will see widespread use as the primary fighter for the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marines as well as U.S. allies abroad.
Researchers at Ames Laboratory's Materials Preparation Center will produce about 400 pounds of an aluminum-yttrium-nickel alloy over the next few months that will serve as a benchmark for testing and to help refine commercial production techniques. The material is being developed [...] to replace heavier or costlier components in the "cool" sections of jet engines. The material also could be used in other parts of an aircraft such as wing spars.
If the new material performs up to expectations, it could have a dramatic impact on the performance and efficiency of both commercial and military aircraft. Jones said that Pratt & Whitney engineers estimated that replacing various components in one particular jet engine with the Al-Y-Ni alloy could potentially lighten the engine by 350 pounds. That's an astronomical weight reduction in aircraft design, where engineers are typically happy to reduce the weight of components by a few pounds here or there.
"It means being able to carry significantly more fuel or payload," Jones said. "It could also mean lower production costs," pointing out that a bulkhead currently milled from a solid block of titanium for the JSF takes months to fabricate.

Labels: nickel

I was up in the middle of the night watching this story unfold. What a heartbreaking reversal. ...

Of course, coal is of interest to stampingoutaliving.com because it's used to make steel.

Reuters.co.ca
Only one man survived after an explosion in a West Virginia coal mine, a mine official said on Wednesday, transforming joy into grief and anger just hours after a mistaken report emerged that 12 of 13 missing miners were still alive 40 hours after the blast.
Ben Hatfield, president of mine owner International Coal Group Inc., blamed the earlier report on 'miscommunication' and said that the company had then waited until it could determine which of the miners were dead or alive to tell the families their fate.
Anne Meredith, whose father died in the incident, said, 'I feel that we were lied to all along,' adding that she planned to sue ICG.
Virginia Dean, whose uncle was in the Sago mine in central West Virginia, reacted by saying: 'Only one lived. They lied.'

MSNBC.com
Germany�s ThyssenKrupp AG said Tuesday it raised its bid for the Canadian steelmaker Dofasco Inc. to $4.2 billion, matching the latest competing offer from steel rival Arcelor SA.
Both bidders are now offering 63 Canadian dollars ($54.23) per share, or a total of 4.88 billion Canadian dollars ($4.2 billion), in cash for Dofasco, which is a major supplier to U.S. automakers.

Labels: Dofasco

Well, it's 2006. Happy Happy everyone.

Considering you're probably still digesting your turkey, it's time to review the other Byrd in our lives.

Just before we broke for the holidays, the Byrd Amendment was kinda, sorta, give-us-2-years revoked. By the way, from the coverage, I can't even tell if Byrd has a deadline or not. The wording all seems very vague.

Here's a review of articles that commented on the situation.

"Byrd Amendment' dumping measure dumped by Congress

A report showed the Timken Company, an Ohio-based producer of ball bearings and steel tubing headed by a major contributor to President George W. Bush's campaign took in the highest Byrd payments, 81.2 million dollars or some 36 percent of the total in the past fiscal year.

Byrd Amendment Dies In The Senate
Local steel union leaders say it's "despicable" that Vice President Dick Cheney cast a tie-breaking vote Wednesday

Duty-sharing Byrd amendment repealed

The Senate repealed a key manufacturing subsidy ...
How can it be a "key manufacturing subsidy" when most manufacturers did not benefit from it, and many manufacturers were discriminated against by it?

U.S. Senate votes to dump Byrd trade law affecting softwood lumber duties

Highlights of the U.S. spending cut bill

Close Senate Vote Weakens U.S. Trade Laws with that title you know it had to come from The Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws. It expressed its deep disappointment in Congress's decision today to repeal an important U.S. law that guards against unfair trade practices.

USW React: Senate Vote Weakens Trade Laws For Workers

"Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote in today's Senate budget bill hurts American workers struggling to compete in the global marketplace. U.S. workers don't have a fighting chance when their own government keeps giving away the tools that seek to even up the playing field.

"Repeal of the Byrd law in the budget bill will accelerate the predatory practices of foreign competitors who are subsidized by their governments to unfairly dump products in America.

"The USW continues to believe that the World Trade Organization's decision that declared the Byrd law in violation of international trading rules as over-reaching. It imposes obligations on the U.S. that were never negotiated and the U.S. negotiators should follow congressional intent by negotiating retention of the Byrd law in the WTO's current Doha Round.

Duty-sharing Byrd amendment is repealed

The Senate repealed a key manufacturing subsidy in narrowly passing a final budget bill Wednesday but compromised to allow U.S. companies that rely on it to keep receiving tariff revenues until their foreign competitors stop illegal practices.
No more companies will be able to receive Byrd money after Oct. 1, 2007.

Senators Vote to Kill Trade Law

A festering trade dispute between the United States and several major trading partners appears set to subside after the Senate voted yesterday to repeal an anti-dumping law that was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.

And from a fishery newspaper
Demand for seafood hits record high

Lawmakers managed to repeal the highly controversial Byrd Amendment, a mechanism that funnels much-needed payments to fledgling commercial fishermen in Louisiana and elsewhere.

While it has recently been touted as a saving grace for processors in the shrimp and crawfish industries, the Byrd amendment will be eliminated by 2007 and channeled into the U.S. Treasury.

Byrd Amendment flies away

Reaction to Congress' action repealing the Byrd Amendment depends on whether U.S. companies and their competitors are exporting or importing their products and the materials needed to manufacture them.

Oh, and lest Sen Byrds name be dropped from the public eye, he was also out stumping against Bush's surprise revelation that he considers himself above the law and legal requirements for wiretap warrants.

Unchecked Power to Spy?

‘President claims a boundless authority’
“Never have the freedoms we cherish seemed so imperiled.�
By United States Senator Robert Byrd

CNN.com
A top official at a coal mine where 13 miners were trapped Tuesday said he was 'very discouraged' by a remote test of air inside the mine, but hope remains that the men could still be alive.
The miners were trapped early Monday after an explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia and are believed to be about 260 feet below the surface at the end of an angled shaft about 2 miles long.
Ben Hatfield, president of International Coal Group, said Tuesday that air testing equipment that was drilled into the mine showed a high quantity of harmful carbon monoxide in the air.

Dofasco said on Tuesday it continues to support a takeover offer from Germany's ThyssenKrupp, which has sweetened its takeover bid for the Canadian steelmaker.

Labels: Dofasco