MassiveIndustry

Platts editors discuss Iran's announcement that it plans to more than double steelmaking capacity to 55 million mt/year by 2025, which would make it one of the world's top ten steelmaking nations.

A slight dip in the Australian dollar March 16 made wheat exports marginally more competitive and most traders adjusted down their offers by $1-$2/mt from the day before.

(Wed, 16 Mar 2016) For decades, coal has been the dominant energy source for generating electricity in the United States. EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook is now forecasting that 2016 will be the first year that natural gas-fired generation exceeds coal generation in the United States on an annual basis. Natural gas generation first surpassed coal generation on a monthly basis in April 2015, and the generation shares for coal and natural gas were nearly identical in 2015, each providing about one-third of all electricity generation.

(Wed, 16 Mar 2016) The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released its 2016 Underground Natural Gas Working Storage Capacity update with data for November 2015. U.S. natural gas working storage capacity (in terms of design capacity and demonstrated maximum working gas volumes) as of November 2015 was essentially flat compared to November 2014, with some regions increasing while others decreased. Demonstrated maximum working gas levels increased in the South Central Salt region, offsetting declines in the Mountain region.