According to the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI), domestic (U.S.) raw steel production declined last week by 2.3% which should be considered normal for this time of year due to the Holidays (last week was Christmas). The new capacity utilization rate from last week was 60.6% when the domestic mills are projected to have produced 1,445,000 tons of raw steel. Read more ...

Zinc – 2009 was another Year to Remember Read more ...

Latest Chinese Pricing

Many of you are aware SMU is trying to get better educated about the CME/NYMEX hot rolled futures contract. We have a number of members who are active participants in the futures market for various reasons – most related to hedging but there could be a speculator or two amongst them as well. One important difference between hot rolled futures and other “metals” is the CME/NYMEX is based on an index settlement and not on actual physical delivery of a hot rolled coil.

Steel Market Update conducts market surveys on a regular basis - approximately every other week with some adjustments for holidays. Our survey is by invitation only and approximately 700 companies are currently invited. They are essentially evenly split between manufacturing companies and service centers with a few mills, trading companies and toll processors thrown in to provide market balance. However, our focus is on the core customers - manufacturers and service centers. Read more ...

Steel Market Update has learned the large #14 furnace at U.S. Steel Gary Read more ...

Steel Market Update conducts a Market Survey of the flat rolled steel industry approximately every other week. We invite 700 companies - equally split between manufacturing companies and service centers with a few trading companies, mills and toll processors thrown in to round out the field. Our survey is by invitation only as we try to utilize information from qualified buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel.

Our latest market survey, which Steel Market Update Read more ...

In their first conference call since the HARDI (Heating, Airconditoning, Refrigeration Distributors International) annual conference held in Orlando in early November, the steel committee discussed the current situation regarding steel price increases. The distributors on the call cover a large portion of the U.S. and Canadian markets.

This afternoon (Wednesday) Nucor began advising their customers of their intention to increase flat rolled steel spot prices effective immediately. The mill is going to the market with the following "base" pricing: Read more ...

Steel Market Update (SMU) feels our approach to how we collect and Read more ...

In last Friday’s SMU we published a letter from a trading company who was critical of us for providing pricing transparency to steel buyers and questioned the need for SMU to provide so much information to our members. As the dialogue progressed with the trading company, they came to the conclusion they could not stop what has already begun and that perhaps SMU was being responsible to the needs of the steel community – buyers and sellers alike.

A number of weeks back one of our steel Read more ...

Steel Market Update received a call earlier today (Wednesday) from a trading company who had some legitimate concerns regarding the information SMU provides to our members regarding pricing. Their concern was we were perhaps sharing too much information which was putting them into a disadvantaged and sometimes unfair situation as they negotiate with their customers. Read more ...

In what most consider a "surprise" move, Severstal NA has announced spot base prices to be charged by product beginning with new orders for January as well as the base price they will be charging for February 2010. In our 32+ years in the steel business we cannot recall another time when back to back increases where announced by a mill on the same day (we do remember mills "rolling" prices from month to month to try to stem the downward pricing spiral).

Last Two Weeks Show Slight Decline in Raw Steel Production Rates