Raw Materials
November 4, 2025
Written by Laura Miller
| Third quarter ended Sept. 30 | 2025 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales | $487.0 | $490.1 | -0.6% |
| Net earnings (loss) | $22.2 | $30.7 | -27.7% |
| Per diluted share | $0.26 | $0.36 | -27.8% |
| Nine months ended Sept. 30 | |||
| Net sales | $1,357.1 | $1,449.4 | -6.4% |
| Net earnings (loss) | $41.4 | $72.2 | -42.7% |
| Per diluted share | $0.48 | $0.85 | -43.5% |
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.
The spread between domestic hot-rolled (HR) coil and prime scrap prices widened for the 13th consecutive month in October, hitting another multi-year high. SMU’s hot-rolled (HR) coil price stands at $1,280 per short ton (st) on average this week, up $10/st from last week and a $40/st increase from a month earlier. Meanwhile, busheling averaged $480 per gross ton (gt) in October, rising $12.50/gt higher from September.
Ferrous scrap prices rose in October as the market grew firmer, scrap sources said. “Overall, the main drivers of this October were strong US mill demand and order books, an export market that had risen over the course of September but has now pulled back slightly, and the season,” one source told SMU. He said at this time dealers and mills anticipate that scrap flows will begin to slow down moving into the end of the year.
Electra, which seeks to make high-purity iron from a process more familiar to base metals, presented at the fall meeting of the International Iron Metallics Association (IIMA) in Chicago last week. The Boulder, Colo.-based company intends to serve iron-consuming markets in both the US and abroad. Steve Beckwith, head of technology commercialization at Electra, said the "clean" iron the company makes could eliminate the need for coal and coke in iron production.
Hertha Metals has broken ground on its first commercial plant, a $100 million project that the startup says will demonstrate its process at scale and lay the groundwork for a 500,000-metric-ton-per-year steel mill. The company celebrated the groundbreaking of the Hertha Chalyx project on Friday, Oct. 9, in Conroe, Texas. The plant is designed to produce ~10,000 metric tons of steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron each year. It will run on domestic iron ore, primarily from Minnesota’s Iron Range, and natural gas from Texas.