Wire Rod World Cost Curve

The Wire Rod World Cost Curve analyzes the production costs for 220 steel mills in 49 countries that have an aggregated capacity to produce 96 million tonnes of wire rod.   The report provides insights into the evolving structure of the wire rod industry: 

• It explains why there are often variations in cost when producing different grades of wire rod. 
• It provides a history of wire rod prices and forecasts wire rod prices over the cycle in the future. 
• It describes each wire rod mill's specialized equipment (such as a Stelmor finishing line), coil size, finishing speed, capacity, quality rating, age of equipment, and other features. 

A 'quality rating' is provided for each of the wire rod mills.  The best rating is '10' which signifies a mill that makes the highest grades of wire rod to the best of product qualities.  In contrast, a '1' rating is for a mill that only makes the lowest commodity grades to the lowest product quality.  According to our analysis, there are about 7 million tonnes of capacity rated in the highest quality rankings (8 to 10), 18 million tonnes rated 6 and 7, 44 million tonnes rated 4 and 5, and 26 million tonnes rated in the lowest 1 to 3 categories.  Interestingly, those mills with the highest quality ratings are typically not high tonnage or low cost mills for reasons that are detailed in the report.

The Wire Rod World Cost Curve is a hands-on strategic tool that can be used to provide a detailed understanding of the cost position of the competition, set cost reduction targets, develop pricing strategies by product, determine opportunities for increased cash flow, allow quicker and more informed responses to new competitive situations, establish a common point of reference when negotiating, and predict how the industry will evolve in the future.  Results are displayed in a readable format that describe each mill’s cost position in practical and theoretical terms. 

The Wire Rod World Cost Curve is provided in two formats: 

• A 1,500-page hard copy computer print-out.  Included are cost assumptions for each country's reference plant and, for each plant, qualitative ratings in 17 categories, costs at and through each process stage in U.S. dollars and the home currency, and a ranking versus all other plants in 35 cost categories.  The subscriber also receives a series of print-outs and graphs that analyze the results from many perspectives. 
• A condensed spreadsheet version on CD ROM.  This version permits the user to change for each plant assumptions on currency value, operating rate, manhours per tonne, employment cost per hour, major material cost, other material cost, depreciation and interest expense, share of costs fixed and share of costs in U.S. dollars by category.

The WSD staff and Donald Barnett, independent consultant, have 150 years of combined experience in assessing critical trends in the steel business.

The World Cost Curve for Wire Rod Plants sells for $7,500 to WSD subscribers and $12,500 to others.

For a sample of the Wire Rod World Cost Curve, please click here “WRWCC”.