The US and India have agreed to end six outstanding disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO), some directly involving steel, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Thursday. Also, USTR Tai said that India has agreed to remove retaliatory tariffs, which it had imposed as a response to the US Section 232 national security measures […]
Offshore hot-rolled coil (HRC) remains at a discount to domestic product, though the US premium is at its lowest mark in nearly four months, according to SMU’s latest foreign vs. domestic price analysis. Prices for hot band stateside have eroded sharply over the past few weeks, down $115 per net ton so far in June, […]
The overall mill negotiation rate was steady this week, though plate was an outlier, jumping 16 percentage points, according to SMU’s most recent survey data. The percentage of respondents saying steel mills were willing to negotiate price on plate rose to 59% this week, up from 33% two weeks ago. Every two weeks, SMU asks […]
Positive structural trends in the North American market are supporting strong earnings results for Commercial Metals Co. The Irving, Texas-based longs producer and metals recycler reported lower fiscal third-quarter sales and earnings compared to levels seen in the year-ago quarter during the 2022 earnings boom, but its results remain strong, said CEO Barbara Smith. “CMC […]
Ternium announced this week that its new slab mill will be built in Pesquería, Nuevo León, Mexico. The Luxembourg-based Latin American steelmaker had said earlier this year it would build an electric-arc furnace (EAF) and direct-reduced iron (DRI) facility in North America. Brownsville, Texas, had been rumored to be in the running for the new […]
The US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) is updating the antidumping duties on carbon and alloy cut-to-length steel plate imported from Belgium. In an administrative review of the AD duties, the ITA is considering the one-year period ended April 30, 2022. In its preliminary ruling, the agency set the weighted-average dumping margin at […]
Flat Rolled = 51.4 Shipping Days of Supply Plate = 55.4 Shipping Days of Supply Flat Rolled US service center flat-rolled steel inventories were nearly flat month on month in May with shipments still strong. Service centers carried 51.4 shipping days of supply at the end of May, according to adjusted SMU data. This was […]
What to make of the latest round of sheet prices hikes: Are they aimed at stopping the bleeding, getting buyers off the sidelines, or actually getting sheet prices back up again? These are serious questions now in a way that they weren’t after U. S. Steel first announced its price hike last Wednesday. That hike […]
The Biden administration over the last few months has articulated the need for a new global economic order. But to date, there is little in the way of ideas for implanting that order. Mostly, Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative and Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, have spoken about what’s wrong with the economic […]
A bipartisan group of 36 members of Congress have expressed their concerns over potential tariffs on tin mill steel products. In a letter to the US International Trade Commission and Department of Commerce on June 12, the group said that the antidumping investigation on tin mill products brought forth by Cleveland-Cliffs earlier this year can […]
Sometimes the skills we obtain through our education can be used in ways other than we expect. Roger Walburn is a metallurgist who uses his specialty to help customers find the perfect fit. His knowledge of metallurgy enables him to get into the weeds with the technical aspects of steel, which educates his customers on […]
With the 2023 SMU Steel Summit quickly approaching, SMU is in full-blown planning mode. Our preparations have me reflecting on last year’s event and what I personally can do to better take full advantage of all the opportunities this year’s event will bring. (Note: CRU and SMU are hosting a free pre-conference webinar on Tuesday, […]
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, SMU polled steel buyers on a variety of subjects, including steel prices, demand levels, and import offers. Rather than summarizing the comments we received, we are sharing some of them in each buyer’s own words. We want to hear your thoughts, too! Contact david@steelmarketupdate.com to be included in our […]
The US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) is updating the antidumping duties on hot-rolled steel flats from South Korea. In an administrative review of the one-year period ended Sept. 30, 2022, the ITA set preliminary dumping margins of 0% for Hyundai Steel, Posco, and 45 other Korean companies not selected for individual examination. […]
Sometimes it seems the whole world is downstream of the steel industry. Now, that may be a side effect of spending my days immersed in lead times, steel buyers sentiment, and hot-rolled coil futures. That would be a fair assessment. However, looking into the testimonies from the Congressional Steel Caucus’ recent hearing on June 7 […]
Geoff Gilmore, future president and CEO of Worthington Steel, will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, June 14, at 11 a.m. ET. The live webinar is free to attend. A recording will be available to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about current steel market dynamics, the […]
This weekend I was at my daughters’ swim meet. It’s a recreational summer league, so not all the kids are very competitive, but they all seem to have a great time cheering each other on. The sportsmanship was unrivaled. All the kids shook each other’s hands after each heat, and nobody exited the water until […]
The US and European Union are working on an agreement dealing with carbon emissions in the steel industry. The impact on bilateral trade could be high. In 2021, the US and EU agreed that the US would suspend the 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the EU would drop its World Trade […]
SMU’s Current Steel Buyers Sentiment Index rose above the Future Buyers Sentiment Index during the week ending June 9 as future sentiment slumped, according to our most recent survey data. Every other week we poll steel buyers about sentiment. The Steel Buyers Sentiment Indices measure how steel buyers feel about their company’s chances of success in the current market, as […]
Domestic hot band prices are rolling downhill at a rate that looks to be accelerating. As SMU managing editor Michael Cowden pointed out in Tuesday night’s Final Thoughts, present dynamics are eerily like what we saw last summer. And we all know where that led us: to a low of $615 per ton ($30.75 per […]
Steel Market Update’s latest survey shows movements in lead times were varied across products this week, with hot rolled falling below the 5-week mark for the first time since early February. The average lead times for hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet all fell back slightly from our market check two weeks ago, while those for […]
The percentage of respondents saying steel mills were willing to negotiate on price stayed relatively flat this week, up one percentage point from two weeks ago, according to SMU’s most recent survey data. Plate bucked the general trend, being the only product surveyed by SMU to fall below 50% of respondents saying steel mills were […]
Bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress on Wednesday to level the playing field for American workers. The Leveling the Playing Field Act 2.0 would enhance US trade remedy laws to protect American workers and “combat China’s unfair, anti-free market trade practices that distort the global market,” according to a release from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). […]
Domestic hot-rolled coil prices are down $55 per ton ($2.75 per cwt), the sharpest such decline we’ve seen all year. If this feels like an echo of June 2022, that’s because it is. Check out the chart below: A year ago, prices were falling hard as the shock of the war in Ukraine faded along […]
The US Department of Commerce issued the final results of its expedited sunset review of antidumping (AD) duties on steel plate from three Asian countries. The agency found that allowing the duties to expire would result in the continuation of dumping at significant rates. This is the fourth sunset review of the AD duties on […]
I wanted a fresh perspective on the steel market this week, so I turned to a new voice – namely, ChatGPT. I won’t weigh in on whether the AI-driven chatbot is a useful tool, an extinction-level threat, or just another shiny object. That said, ChatGPT has been available publicly since Nov. 30, 2022. And it […]
The debt ceiling deal passed by Congress has averted either an economic catastrophe or a minor headache, depending on who you talk to. It’s more likely that a pretty serious catastrophe was averted. But there was, in my view, never a serious chance that the US would default on its sovereign debt. More likely, some […]
Geoff Gilmore, future president and CEO of Worthington Steel, will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, June 14, at 11 am ET. The live webinar is free to attend. A recording will be available to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about current steel market dynamics, the […]
In a falling market, yesterday’s special deal is tomorrow’s prevailing price. A lot of you know that rule of thumb. What does it mean for the market now? Let’s sketch out a scenario. I wrote last week that someone buying tens of thousands of tons of hot-rolled coil (HRC) might be seeing prices in the […]
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, SMU polled steel buyers on a variety of subjects, including current and future steel prices, inventory strategies, supply, demand, and new mill capacity. Rather than summarizing the comments we received, we are sharing some of them in each buyer’s own words. We want to hear your thoughts, too! […]