The World Steel Association's annual conference has kicked off in Paris. Overall, production and prices have dropped because of a slowdown in global production. But the American steel industry is showing signs of a turnaround.

From station WCPN in Cleveland, Mr Brian Bull for Marketplace reports the following:

Mr Ernie Sexton site manager at TMK IPSCO's steel plant near Youngstown said that "Then we feed it into our equipment. That's when we do the metal removal and threading of the product. These pipes are headed to the growing natural gas industry in the Marcellus Shale region in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. The heavy grade pipes will be used to drill wells as deep as five miles underground. Sexton says if it weren't for such operations, his plant wouldn't even be here."

He added that "We're a relatively new facility; we just opened in March 2010. So this is all new to us."

Ms Nancy Gravatt of American Iron and Steel Institute said that "So we expect, and I think analysts predict for the next 10 years, to see continuing demand from the energy sector."

Another industry boosting US steel is automotive. Around the clock shifts have resumed at Republic Steel, a 125 year old company in Canton. Here in a dusty rail yard, a crane dumps heaps of scrap metal into a towering clamshell bucket. It'll be melted down into ingots, and sold to car companies.

Mr Mark Huemme marketing director of Republic Steel said that "Well we've seen a rather dramatic uptick starting with early 2010. Most of our business is driven by light vehicle sales and by heavy vehicle sales. Industry reps in the Northeast aren't worried yet about cheaper Chinese steel cutting in. The plants and mills here are practically next door to the natural gas and automotive sites they sell to. And that keeps costs down."