Steel users should be worried. For years, until last winter, they held the whiphand in setting prices. Since 1990, hot rolled coil in Europe has varied from about $250 to $350 a tonne, with a blip up in 1995 and a double dip that began four years later (see chart). But this year, with a world recovery and China racing like a dragon boat, the price has soared, to near $600. And now comes a tycoon not just planning to put together the world's biggest steel company, with a crude-steel output of almost 52m tonnes this year, but looking to a day when the market is dominated by a handful of producers with loom tonnes apiece. The boss of Arcelor, today's biggest producer, sees the same future.
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