Sheet
May 28, 2025
Written by David Schollaert
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Reliance Inc. is keeping a close eye on inventory as extended lead times, elevated prices, and tight material availability complicate purchasing decisions. Executives at the Phoenix-based service center said on Thursday's third-quarter earnings call that inventory levels were appropriate. The company is reducing excess inventory and focusing on inventory turns. Chief Financial Officer Arthur Ajemyan said inventory turns improved 10% year over year.
"Now, the problem is no longer the price. The problem is having access to steel." That would have made a good lead. But I can’t take credit for it. Those (very quotable) words are from Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves during the steelmaker’s quarterly earnings conference call on Monday. For a while, I thought the shortages we'd been hearing about might be mostly a problem for small- and mid-sized buyers. But we’re seeing even some of the biggest steel buyers talking openly about supply problems.
U.S. Steel’s board of directors has approved a nearly $3 billion investment in a new hot strip mill (HSM) at the Edgar Thomson Plant, part of the Mon Valley Works outside Pittsburgh. The project confirms Nippon Steel's commitment to modernize the Mon Valley HSM, a pledge made before and after its acquisition of U.S. Steel. It is part of Nippon's broader $14 billion capital investment plan for the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker's facilities.
The US Department of Commerce has reduced the anti-dumping duty on corrosion-resistant steel (CORE) for some Mexican producers after a court order. On remand from the Court of International Trade (CIT), Commerce agreed that the record did not show that Galvasid SA de CV’s US customers separately negotiated or paid freight or insurance. The agency therefore removed the adjustment and recalculated the margin. As a result, the agency lowered Galvasid’s coated steel dumping rate to 14.54%, from 24.05%. The all-others rate is now 14.29%, down from 17.42%. Ternium’s rate is unchanged at 14.17%.
A steel supply constraint is affecting some production schedules at Nissan North America, the automaker confirmed to SMU. The confirmation followed a Friday report by WLBT3 News that the constraint was affecting production at Nissan’s Canton, Miss., plant. SMU asked whether the issue was affecting other facilities. “Nissan continues to manage a steel supply constraint affecting some of our production schedules,” a company spokesperson said in an email to SMU on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Nissan is working with its supplier and taking steps to limit disruption to employees, dealers, and customers, the spokesperson added. The company provided no further details.