Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 24, 2018
The wheels are moving and things are happening that are going to affect the momentum behind this market.
First, there are new price increase announcements being made, first out of California and now by ArcelorMittal USA, which has put new base prices into the market. Second, Big River Steel put their customers on allocation for the month of March. Steel Market Update heard from multiple BRS customers who advised us that BRS was telling contract customers they could not order more than the contract “minimum” for the month of March. Other customers also told us that their tonnage was being restricted in March so the mill could catch up and deliver late orders. I expect there will be more mill announcements in the coming days reacting to what ArcelorMittal put out there this evening. AM told their customers the new minimum base prices would be: $750 per ton on hot rolled and $930 per ton on cold rolled and coated products.
And we are still waiting for the president’s decision on Section 232…
We had an excellent Steel 101 workshop in Mobile over the past two days. I want to thank SSAB who went out of their way to provide an exceptional experience for our attendees. The mill has to change out one of the molds in their caster, which impacted their EAF. Even so, the mill went out of their way to charge their two EAF’s for our group. Thank you again SSAB.
Our next Steel 101 workshop will be in Merrillville, Ind., and we will tour the NLMK USA Portage steel mill. The dates are March 28-29, 2018. You can find more details on our website.
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 has heard from some larger buyers who have stepped back into the market to buy at prices that, if not at a bottom, they assess to be close to one. Is it enough to stretch out lead times and send prices upward again? Or do we continue to scrape along the mid-$600s per short ton (st) as we have been doing for most of the last month?
Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had some insightful things to say today about the steel market and about a conference we suspect might be Steel Summit.
Final thoughts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you add in some commentary from respected peers in the steel industry to those pictures, that may shoot you up to five thousand words, at least. In that spirit, we’ve added some snapshots from our market survey this week, along with some comments from market participants.
Final thoughts
I thought we’d have more clarity this week on Section 232, Mexico, and a potential carve-out for steel melted and poured in Brazil. As of right now, the only official comment I have is from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).
Final thoughts
There are just 40 days left until the 2024 SMU Steel Summit gets underway on Aug. 26 at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta. And I’m pleased to announce that it's official now: More than 1,000 people have registered to at attend! Another big development: The desktop version of the networking app for the event has officially launched!