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Article: INDUSTRY CAN DEPEND ONLY ON CONTINUED UNCERTAINTY
- Article from:
- Post-Tribune (IN)
- Article date:
- October 31, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008, 2009, Post-Tribune. All rights reserved. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED. (Hide copyright information)
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Uncertainty is the name of the game in the U.S. steel industry. Steel suppliers, makers and purchasers from across the country threw up their collective hands Thursday at the second North American Steel Conference in Chicago, exhausted and confused by the wild ride steel and other commodities have been on in 2008.
With record price spikes in the first part of the year, the cost for some types of steel have since fallen by more than half in the past few months.
Commodities such as coal saw similar gyrations. Now, at the birth of what could be a global recession, steel buyers and sellers are left to wonder whether demand for their product will be the next thing to go into free-fall.
Companies ...