At last week’s PMTS show Lloyd interviewed Wes Skinner, head of ManthBrownell Corporation, of Kirkville, New York. They discussed the ups and downs of the brass market, now dominated by Chase Brass and Mueller Brass in North America. Until recently brass has never sold for more than the price of copper.
In the following video Skinner comments on the difficulty in dealing with this brass bar duopoly.
Lloyd,
A very impressive interview (just kidding). What I did not say was that recently Chase and Mueller have established alternate pricing to address the high price of brass. This has been well received, I am told, but if effect trades the high price of brass for an increase in the difference between rod and scrap. In total, this does little to lower brass cost per pound, but does shift the cost of brass to parts that have a higher percentage of scrap.