Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 11, 2014
For those of you who would like to read the fact sheet sent out by the International Trade Administration (ITA) which contains the US Department of Commerce Final Determination on the OCTG trade case you can click on this link.
As I mentioned in one of the above articles, Roger Schagrin of Schagrin Associates is one of the lead attorneys on behalf of the steel mills when dumping suits are filed. If there is a filing on flat rolled steel products Mr. Schagrin will most likely be involved. He will be a speaker at our Steel Summit Conference in September.
With the Final Determination by the U.S. Department of Commerce the OCTG case is not over. There will be hearings on the case on the 15th of July, post-hearing briefs and a final report by the ITC due on August 1st. The case is not slated to be “closed” until August 25, 2014 (9 days prior to our conference).
We encourage our members to read the article about the filing of a trade case earlier in this newsletter so that you can have a sense that there are two government bodies at play in each trade suit: the US Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission and both bodies can set duties or damages against offending steel mills or nations.
Our sources advised us that the final offers to buy Severstal NA were to have been made by Friday of this past week. We learned one of the mills involved asked for an extension which was not granted. The expectation is this process will spill into the mid to later part of August before a buyer is selected. There are four groups being bantered about as potential suitors: US Steel, Steel Dynamics, CSN and JFE. There may be other mills involved as well and the expectation is there could be two or three mills selected in an attempt to push the price as high as possible. One option is that Severstal will decide not to sell but it is believed that any number over $2 billion would most likely result in a sale. Saikat Dey, CEO of Severstal NA will be one of our speakers at this year’s Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta.
We will post on our website the early registrations for those interested in learning what companies are slated to attend our conference. We hope to have the early list in place by Tuesday at the latest.
I want to welcome our newest members to the Steel Market Update family. We encourage our members to interact with us which you can do by email: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone: 800-432-3475. If you have any questions or suggestions please contact us. More than likely, if you have a questions others may have the same question. Many times we use suggestions from our members for articles and research.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final thoughts
SMU had the pleasure of attending the American Iron and Steel Institute's (AISI's) annual general meeting in Washington this week. It was a slow week in our nation's capital, so we were able to take a leisurely stroll around the National Mall and take in the sights. Just kidding. In fact, the meeting coincided with significant trade actions announced by the Biden administration. It included, among other things, additional tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.
Final thoughts
Our spot price is little changed this week after moving sharply lower last week on the heels of Nucor’s unexpected price cut. Here’s one thought on that trend: Nucor's weekly HR price (aka, its “Consumer Spot Price” or CSP) has to date functioned almost more like a monthly price.
Final thoughts
What's the tea in the steel industry this week? Here's the latest SMU gossip column! Just kidding... kind of. Yes, some of the comments we receive in our weekly flat-rolled market steel buyers' survey are honestly too much to put into print. Some make us laugh. Some make us cringe. Some are cryptic. Most are serious. We appreciate them all. Below are some highlights from our survey results this week. Some of the comments that we can share with you are also included, in italics, in the buyers' own words, with minimal editing on our part.
Final thoughts
Last week we wrote about a brief lull in price movement, labeling it a period of wait and see. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty brief. This week... things are little bit different. Perhaps right now we are more in a period of "hope and pray" or "Here we go, hold on to your hats."
Final thoughts
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)