- Despite Rhetoric, Obama Has Few Options to Boost Jobs
- US Debating What to Do With Billions of TARP Money Left
- US Starts Fiscal 2010 With $176 Billion Gap for October
- Forecast From Retailers: Proceed With Caution
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Disney CFO and Parks Chief to Swap Roles
- Housing Recovery 'In Uncharted Territory': HUD Chief
- For Video Game Makers, Stakes Are High for Holidays
- In Charity Tax Filing, a Real Glimpse of Goldman Sachs
- Warren Buffett's $100,000 Offer and $500,000 Advice for Columbia Business School Students
- Activision Blizzard's "Modern Warfare 2" Sales Break Records
- 5-Star Manager's 5 Stocks for Changing Markets
- What's The Forecast from Retailers? Proceed With Caution
- Disney's CFO-Theme Park Chairman Executive Swap
- Road Rage Rants
- Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory': HUD Secretary
- S&P Stocks Trading at New 52-Week Highs
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Share Their 'Optimism' With Eager Columbia Business Students
MOST SHARED
- Meet The Leaders of the New Retail Revolution
- Obama Plans Jobs Summit But Not Second Stimulus
- "Friending" Big Pharma
- A Public Hearing That Isn't Public
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Share Their 'Optimism' With Eager Columbia Business Students
- Disney CFO and Parks Chief to Swap Roles
- For Video Game Makers, Stakes Are High for The Holidays
- Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory': HUD Secretary
- Smoking on Rise Again: More US Adults Lighting Up
Text Size 
 |
AP |
Rising raw material prices are likely to be passed on and will take another chunk out of consumers’ wallets, further heaping inflationary pressures on to the global economy, ArcelorMittal CFO Aditya Mittal told CNBC Wednesday.
“In 2008 we have seen significant raw material price increases, this is impacting not only the global steel industry, but will eventually impact the average consumer because we will see this higher cost increases in the cars we buy, in the appliances we buy and in the homes we build,” Mittal told “Worldwide Exchange.”
The soaring cost of iron ore, the main material in making steel, has been forcing metal makers such as ArcelorMittal to look at passing the higher input prices onto their customers.
ArcelorMittal has managed to keeps some of the price rises at bay so far due to having 45 percent self-sufficiency for iron-ore production, but the company is currently renegotiating key contracts in an attempt to recoup some of the added costs and has hiked the price for its flat carbon products in Europe.
The steel maker reported solid earnings Wednesday, ahead of its own forecasts, and said the weakness in the US economy was not affecting its performance because of the strong demand from industrializing countries such as Russia, China and India.
But its ability to successfully pass on the rising cost of steel production could be the key issue for the company and the industry as a whole, as fears of an economic slowdown in the US and Europe mount.
“The big issue facing the steel industry is the higher raw material coasts … clearly we are getting squeezed,” Mittal said.
Print
Email
- CNBC is blogging a talk given by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to students at Columbia University.
- They may have wrecked their company or saved our economy. Tell us what you think.
- Big pharma embraces social media, but how much should a tightly regulated sector say on Facebook or Twitter?
- A European dating site finds lovelorn singles from one country to be consistently uglier. Which is it?
- Contributor David Pogue looks at two of the latest efforts to perfect the digital pocket camera.
- PepsiCo is ramping up its onsite health facilities for workers.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes