INDIANA PARLEY

Fort Wayne's Valbruna Stainless Steel One of the Affected Producers

The Specialty Steel Industry of North America released a study this week prepared by the Georgetown Economic Services. The study examined the amount of specialty steel imported to the United States.

Fort Wayne's Valbruna Stainless Steel, the successor to Slater Steel, is one of the American producers affected.

The study reported that

[i]mports of total stainless steel (comprising [all] product lines) YTD through July 2005 were 399,708 tons, a 13% increase; U.S. consumption was 1,361,595 tons, a 4% decrease; seven-month import penetration was 29%, a four percentage point increase.

The importation of stainless steel bar showed an increase of 72% although that was somewhat offset by an increase in United States consumption of 27%. Even so, import penetration in stainless steel bar is now over 50%. That represents a 13% increase over last year.

The press release from the Specialty Steel Industry of North America was released on Monday.

This strikes me as one of those stories affecting the Fort Wayne and Indiana economy that should be reported by the "regular news media." However, a Google news search indicates that no regular media outlet in Indiana has yet to cover this story of increasing import pressure. The last story done by Fort Wayne media was on September 21, 2005. That was a "soft" story carried by WPTA/WISE TV on September 21st and the Fort Wayne Newspapers on September 22nd regarding a sizeable donation by Valbruna to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

If someone can show me an earlier report by an Indiana news outlet other than this humble blog posting let our readers know.