Steel Products

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration exempted yesterday 295 steel products from import tariffs levied a year ago, including wine-barrel strips for Illinois Tool Works Inc. and zinc-coated sheets that Sharp Corp. uses to make microwave ovens. The exclusions, which producers estimate represent 360,000 tons of imports, bring to 995 the products exempted from duties that are as high as 24 percent. A quarter of the 13 million tons of steel imports originally covered by the tariffs imposed by President Bush in March last year had been exempted in subsequent months, according to the Commerce Department.

The five-pointed star, made of stainless steel and dozens of heavy-duty light bulbs, looks deceptively simple. Its symbolism is anything but. Not long after Bethlehem Steel built the Sparrows Point steel mill's massive "L" blast furnace in 1978, workers erected the "Star of Bethlehem" at the top - a reference to the longtime owner as well as to the nativity. The star has shone from on high in December ever since, its meaning slowly transforming from an eye-catching example of the steel mill's might to something deeper and more emotional.

TOKYO -- Japan said it is considering further action against U.S. steel trade policy, after filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over U.S. sanctions on hot-rolled steel.Tokyo filed a complaint yesterday to protest a June decision by the United States to impose duties as high as 67 percent on hot-rolled steel shipments of Kawasaki Steel Corp., 19.65 percent on shipments of Nippon Steel Corp. and 17.86 percent on shipments of NKK Corp.The sanctions were imposed after U.S. steelmakers said their Japanese counterparts were flooding the U.S. market with steel priced too low."

The auction for RG Steel's Sparrows Point steel mill, expected today, will be delayed by a week. Attorneys for the company, which is in bankruptcy protection, confirmed Tuesday morning that the sale was not underway as originally planned. An attorney for Kinder Morgan, one of the major creditors, said the auction had been rescheduled to next week. Jerry Conners, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1223 in Yorkville, Ohio, said he was told RG Steel's Wheeling, W.Va., assets were being auctioned off Tuesday.

Blaming increased costs for raw materials and labor, the Sparrows Point steel plant of Bethlehem Steel Corp., is planning to raise the price tag on its wares over the next two months.Like many of the nation's big steelmakers, Bethlehem Steel has seen demand for its steel products generally lag behind last year's robust levels.At the same time, as the economy continues to soften, Bethlehem's production costs for raw material and energy have risen."We've indicated [to our customers] that the reasons for the increases are our own production prices going up for raw materials, and some increases in labor," said Bethlehem spokesman Henry Von Spreckelsen yesterday.

Following the lead of other major steel companies, Bethlehem Steel Corp. announced yesterday that it would raise the prices of its steel sheet products in a bid to buoy the company to profitability."

Although the federal government has extensive buy-American regulations dating back to the 1930s, Maryland and Baltimore governments have relatively few restrictions.The main federal law is the Buy American Act, which was passed during the Depression to bolster U.S. industry. The act generally gives U.S. products preference in government bidding. But various laws in recent decades have created a variety of loopholes and exceptions.Like other federal agencies, the Department of Defense complies with the Buy American Act by adding a percentage surcharge to the price of foreign products for bidding purposes.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Community's top trade official accused U.S. steel companies yesterday of "harassing" world trade by launching a wave of suits charging foreign steelmakers with unfair trade practices.EC Trade Commissioner Frans Andriessen said he will seek immediate top-level consultations with the Bush administration after major U.S. steel companies filed 84 petitions with the U.S. government Tuesday against foreign steelmakers, including 38 from seven EC countries.The U.S. steel producers asked the government to impose penalty duties on about 6.5 million net tons a year of sheet and plate imports.

The five-pointed star, made of stainless steel and dozens of heavy-duty light bulbs, looks deceptively simple. Its symbolism is anything but. Not long after Bethlehem Steel built the Sparrows Point steel mill's massive "L" blast furnace in 1978, workers erected the "Star of Bethlehem" at the top - a reference to the longtime owner as well as to the nativity. The star has shone from on high in December ever since, its meaning slowly transforming from an eye-catching example of the steel mill's might to something deeper and more emotional.

On the heels of a decision to allow more duty-free steel into the country, the U.S. International Trade Commission dealt another blow to steelmakers yesterday when it ruled that major U.S. producers had not been harmed by certain cold-rolled imports. The decision means domestic steelmakers - dozens of which have filed for bankruptcy protection in recent years - will not get the added protections they were seeking. The decision was hailed by steel users, who say they have suffered from higher steel prices because of the tariffs President Bush imposed in March to help the struggling domestic steel industry to get back on its feet.

Four years ago, the purchase of the Sparrows Point steel mill by OAO Severstal stirred hopes among steelworkers, their families and the community. Last year, the appearance of new owners Renco Group Inc. and its subsidiary, RG Steel, did, too. Four times in the past decade, expectations have periodically been raised in similar fashion. Might the next owners turn things around and provide the needed investments to make Sparrows Point competitive again? Each time, those hopes have been dashed and a parade of managers proved themselves unequal to the task.

Walter F. "Cork" O'Loughlin Jr., a retired steel company production manager, died of undetermined causes Friday at Anne Arundel Medical Center. He was 82. Mr. O'Loughlin was born in Baltimore and raised on Franklintown Road. He attended Polytechnic Institute and was a 1938 graduate of Forest Park High School. Mr. O'Loughlin then went to work for Rustless Iron & Steel Co. in East Baltimore, which later became Armco Steel Corp. He retired in the 1980s. "He worked himself up from mail boy to production manager," said his sister, Louise Gary of Sarasota, Fla. Mr. O'Loughlin, a former resident of Baltimore's Hamilton section, had lived in Annapolis since 1983.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration exempted yesterday 295 steel products from import tariffs levied a year ago, including wine-barrel strips for Illinois Tool Works Inc. and zinc-coated sheets that Sharp Corp. uses to make microwave ovens. The exclusions, which producers estimate represent 360,000 tons of imports, bring to 995 the products exempted from duties that are as high as 24 percent. A quarter of the 13 million tons of steel imports originally covered by the tariffs imposed by President Bush in March last year had been exempted in subsequent months, according to the Commerce Department.

On the heels of a decision to allow more duty-free steel into the country, the U.S. International Trade Commission dealt another blow to steelmakers yesterday when it ruled that major U.S. producers had not been harmed by certain cold-rolled imports. The decision means domestic steelmakers - dozens of which have filed for bankruptcy protection in recent years - will not get the added protections they were seeking. The decision was hailed by steel users, who say they have suffered from higher steel prices because of the tariffs President Bush imposed in March to help the struggling domestic steel industry to get back on its feet.

WASHINGTON - The United States will raise import quotas for Russian raw steel by 200,000 tons this year, positioning that nation's slab-steel producers to get a bigger market share than they had before tariffs were imposed in March. The higher quota for slab steel, which is heated and rolled into finished steel, will mean $50 million in added sales for Russian steelmakers. It will help offset the estimated $500 million in sales that the Russian companies will lose with the tariffs on finished steel.

The tariffs that President Bush imposed on imported steel this week will help keep domestic mills operating but won't by themselves restore the industry's financial health, analysts said yesterday. "It will help them stay in business," said John Anton, a steel analyst for consulting firm DRI-WEFA in Washington. "It will not help them flourish." President Bush this week imposed tariffs of up to 30 percent on a large number of steel imports - including 30 percent levies on hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel, two of the main products made at Bethlehem Steel Corp.

Bethlehem Steel Corp. said yesterday that lower prices, lower shipments and a $15 million restructuring charge for selling a coal mine caused a 68 percent plunge in its quarterly earnings.Net income for the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, was $11 million, down from $34 million for the corresponding period a year earlier.After deduction for payment of preferred dividends, shareholders broke even on a per-share basis compared with earnings of 22 cents a share for the year-earlier quarter.

What Bethlehem Steel has accomplished during the past decade in transforming its Sparrows Point plant into one of the most modern and efficient mills in the world is truly impressive and a huge boon to the Baltimore economy. Without Bethlehem's $1 billion-plus investment and its conversion to continuous casting, the Point might have been forced to close. The 6,000 jobs on its shrunken payroll would no longer exist.How much Sparrows Point's survival is due to the steel industry's marked ability to secure government protection from foreign competition is a matter of conjecture, but we consider it an important factor.

Harold Bruce Bending, a steel products businessman whose intelligence and eccentric personality were highlighted when he twice read a set of encyclopedias from cover to cover, died Saturday of an illness related to Parkinson's disease at his Bel Air home. He was 70. Mr. Bending was born in Toronto, where he graduated from New Liskeard High School three years early, at age 15. In 1950, at age 19, he earned degrees in English and engineering from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. In December 1950, he married his college sweetheart, Marilyn Lee Patchen, as he began working for a division of U.S. Steel Corp.

TOKYO -- Japan said it is considering further action against U.S. steel trade policy, after filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over U.S. sanctions on hot-rolled steel.Tokyo filed a complaint yesterday to protest a June decision by the United States to impose duties as high as 67 percent on hot-rolled steel shipments of Kawasaki Steel Corp., 19.65 percent on shipments of Nippon Steel Corp. and 17.86 percent on shipments of NKK Corp.The sanctions were imposed after U.S. steelmakers said their Japanese counterparts were flooding the U.S. market with steel priced too low."