Product
September 19, 2017
Written by Sandy Williams
The United Steelworkers union is calling for the United States to negotiate stronger NAFTA rules of origin. The union charges that the rules negotiated more than 25 years ago do not reflect current economic reality and sourcing patterns.
Increased imported content from China and other nations has been detrimental to U.S. production in North America, claims the union.
The results of the latest Steel Market Update (SMU) flat-rolled market survey are now available on our website to all premium members. After logging in, look under the Data tab for Market Reports, and there you will find the Flat-Rolled Survey Results section. Previous survey results are also available on that page. If you need help accessing these results, or if your company would like to have your voice heard in our future surveys, contact smu@crugroup.com.
Open interest on CME Group’s hot-rolled (HR) coil futures contract typically builds throughout the month before dropping at the end of the month alongside contract settlement. Analysis in this report is based on an early month view of this open interest as well as prices. Notably, open interest for the HR coil contract is currently at a record high of 849,240 short tons (st) or 42,462 contracts. Open interest is up 13.8% m/m and 66% higher from the 511,480 st of open interest a year ago.
Ferrous scrap prices rose in November across all grades SMU tracks, though prices varied widely by region. “Marketwise, we saw disparate market movements between regions in the November trade, which wrapped up earlier this week,” one source told SMU. “It was a mixed bag, depending on the region and grade.”
JSW Steel USA has completed a $110-million modernization project at its plate mill in Baytown, Texas, a company spokesperson told SMU. “Baytown is back up,” the spokesperson said. “The planned outage is complete, and the mill is running across all of our existing processes.” “Our newly installed equipment is now in the hot commissioning and trialing phase, which is an exciting next step for the site,” she added.
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has voted unanimously to keep anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on welded line pipe from South Korea and Turkey in place for another five years.