Analysis
April 11, 2023
Written by Laura Miller
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. this week provided an early look into its first-quarter earnings – which the company will disclose in full detail on April 23.
Q1 steel shipments, revenues, and adjusted EBITDA are all expected to be higher than the prior quarter, the steelmaker said in a news release. At the same time, despite higher shipments, revenues and EBITDA will be significantly lower than Q1 2022.
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has rescheduled the planned reline of the C blast furnace at its Burns Harbor steel mill in northwest Indiana from mid-2027 to April 2028, company executives said. The delay allows the Cleveland-based steelmaker to keep the furnace, which has annual capacity of ~2.2 million short tons, operating while steel prices and demand remain favorable for mills, they said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Monday.
The pig iron trade from Brazil into the US has been lackluster over the last month with minimal activity. Many players in the trade thought activity would increase after the International Iron Metallics Assn (IIMA) meeting in Chicago earlier this month, but it has not materialized so far. Part of the reason could be the US scrap buy for October stretched out longer than usual, as buyers and sellers haggled over price. Now that prices settled upward, there may be different ideas on where pig iron prices should settle.
SMU’s Current Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Index ticked up this week, while Future Sentiment remained flat again, according to our latest market survey. Every two weeks, SMU polls thousands of steel-industry executives, asking them to rate their companies’ chances of success today and also three to six months down the road. We use their responses to calculate our proprietary Current and Future Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices, measures tracked since 2008.
Manufacturing activity improved in several Federal Reserve districts, but conditions remained mixed nationwide, according to the Fed’s Oct. 14 Beige Book report. Demand was strongest in steel, machinery, defense-related products, and data center infrastructure. Steel producers in the Cleveland District reported firm spot market demand. Data center, power-generation, defense, and aerospace projects supported orders. Long mill lead times kept customer inventories lean and prices high. Producers also reported higher orders from truck-trailer and light-vehicle manufacturers. International demand for hydrogen vehicle parts increased.
On the face of it, nothing much changed in the US steel market this week. Lead times continue to extend. Inventories remain lean. And mills can pretty much name their price. Sheet lead times, which extend well into December, remain at the highest levels we’ve seen since 2021. Plate lead times, meanwhile, set a new record. At 11 weeks on average, they’re higher than anything we’ve recorded – including during the boom year of ’21.