The worry on every steelman's mind is that as the growth in demand for steel slows from its recent hectic rates, the huge increasein Chinese productioncapacity will be diverted to turning out steel for export.
As we had mentioned then, the most significant advantage to Cliffs from the acquisition is the increasein its North American iron ore productioncapacity.
The U.S. Agriculture Department has projected a 23% increasein farm-grown exports in the 2008 over 2007, and ethanol productioncapacity increased by 60% to 11 billion gallons, saving the global oil market almost one million barrels of oil per day.
Wednesday's report follows Solarfun's forecast earlier this month for strong demand in the second half of this year and said it plans to increase its productioncapacity.
While international oilfield services firms like Halliburton and Schlumberger have kept operations going in the South American country, PDVSA has proven that its capacity to increaseproduction on its own is quite limited.