Steel Products
Key Pricing Driver for the Month – Constraints in Supply
Written by John Packard
August 13, 2013
The main issue driving steel prices during the month of July was supply and the constraints in supply related to production issues at the North American steel producers.
U.S. Steel Lake Erie Works continued to be on lockout throughout July. The 2.5 million ton a year slab and hot rolled mill was
first locked out on April 28, 2013. U.S. Steel submitted a new offer to the union late during the month and asked the Canadian government for a forced vote which was supervised by the Ministry of Labour on July 31. The vote failed and the lockout will continue at Lake Erie Works.
AK Steel’s Middletown blast furnace was down due to a bell falling into the furnace back in June, leaving the mill operating with limited melt in widths wider than 68” and no spot availability. The accident occurred on June 22nd and the furnace was restarted on July 12th coming back to full operation the week of July 22nd.
The Ternium Shreveport, LA facility suffered a spill of molten zinc/aluminum from their Galvalume pot on July 5th. The liquid metal came in contact with electrical wiring and shut down their hot-dipped coating line. The facility was back in operation after approximately one week.
ThyssenKrupp Steel USA (Calvert, Alabama) slab source mill out of Brazil suffered a failure on one of its two blast furnaces in early May. This accident affected TK’s lead times and availability of slabs for its August order book. The blast furnace did return to operation during the month of July and TK should begin building back their slab inventories during the month of August.
Ternium Mexico suffered an explosion at their Guerrero facility in Northern Mexico. The explosion, which was located at the DRI entry point into their electric arc furnace killed 10 people and injured 4 others. The mill steelmaking facilities were out of operation for approximately one week.
Severstal Columbus suffered a spill of molten steel on July 30th which damaged one of its casters. SMU understanding is the spill was minor and the shut-down in production would only be for one week or less.
As we enter the month of August a number of the constraints to supply during July will have been resolved or on their way to resolution and could impact future pricing as the month of August progresses.

John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products

Galv buyers less optimistic about short-term market
“It was a little more of a seller's market as contractors seemed to be protecting themselves against a potential run up in prices," one buyer said.

SMU flat-rolled market survey results now available
SMU’s latest steel buyers market survey results are now available on our website to all premium members. After logging in at steelmarketupdate.com, visit the pricing and analysis tab and look under the “survey results” section for “latest survey results.” Past survey results are also available under that selection. If you need help accessing the survey results, or if […]

US, offshore CRC prices continue to fall
US cold-rolled (CR) coil prices were down again this week, slipping six weeks in a row and seeing the sharpest drop-off since last July.

Asian HR remains much cheaper than US, EU product
Domestic hot-rolled (HR) coil prices fell this week, now down seven of the last eight weeks.

April service center shipments and inventories report
Flat rolled = 57.6 shipping days of supply Plate = 54.5 shipping days of supply Flat rolled US service centers’ flat-rolled steel supply edged up in April, as shipments slowed. At the end of April, US service centers carried 57.6 shipping days of supply, according to adjusted SMU data. This is up from 56.4 shipping […]