Esmark Europe has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Slovakian businessman Peter Kamaras for attempting to undermine Esmark Europe’s bid for Zelezara Smederevo Steel Works. Esmark asserts that Kasmaras aligned himself as an investor and agent with Esmark Europe to gain inside information while simultaneously undermining Esmarks’ bid to privatize Zelezara Smederevo for […]
Kloeckner Metals Corp, the Americas segment of Klockner & Co., posted EBITDA of €19 million ($21 million) for fourth quarter 2014, as compared to €2 million ($2.2 million) year over year. Sales for fourth quarter were €604 million, down from third quarter €634 million ($665 million) but up 16.3 percent y/y. Shipments in fourth quarter […]
US Steel told union workers it will permanently shut down coke-making operations at the Gary Works facility in Indiana. The closure will affect 300 employees and take place in mid May. A US Steel spokesperson said, “This strategic decision was made in light of the company’s long-term coke position and the future anticipated steelmaking operations, […]
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed Nucor’s lawsuit against future competitor Big River Steel. U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes said Nucor’s citizen lawsuit is not authorized under the Clean Air Act and the court has no jurisdiction over the case. Nucor argued that Big River steel was violating emission standards by constructing the mill without […]
Olympic Steel reported higher sales volume and demand in fourth quarter 2014, but lower steel prices reduced margins for the quarter and year. Olympic Steel reported consolidated net sales up 12.5 percent for a fourth quarter record of $326.7 million. Full year sales were also a record at $1.4 billion, up 13.7 percent from 2013. […]
U.S. Steel announced the promotion of Colleen M. Darragh to the position of vice president and controller, effective immediately. Darragh will be responsible for the global financial accounting, reporting and analysis functions for the company. Darragh joined U. S. Steel in 2006 as director – external reporting and advanced through a series of increasingly responsible […]
Tenaris announced it will temporarily suspend operations at its welded tubes mill in Conroe, Texas. The shutdown will result in the layoff of approximately 230 employees, effective April 2015. “Record levels of unfairly traded imports of OCTG (oil country tubular goods) from South Korea and the sharp decline in the price of oil and consequential […]
Once a month, HARDI sponsors a galvanized steel conference call with the wholesalers who sell sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors. Steel Market Update (SMU) has participated in these informative discussions for a number of years and they are very useful in our understanding of the ebb and flow of both pricing and […]
With the reset of iron ore and ferrous scrap pricing there is an extraordinary amount of interest in trying to figure out the cost to produce a hot rolled coil at the domestic steel mills. This is a question Steel Market Update is asked on an almost weekly basis. We wrote about the subject recently […]
Worthington Industries Inc. has revised its six month outlook due to falling steel prices and demand. In a Feb. 23 press release, Worthington wrote, “The price of steel has dropped over $100 a ton since mid-December. The amount and speed of the decline was not anticipated. When steel prices fall, the Company typically has higher-priced […]
AK Steel announced it will build a Research and Innovation Center in Middletown, Ohio. The 120,000 square foot Center will replace an existing research facility already located in Middletown. The project is estimated at $36 million and will be constructed on a 15 acre site. The Research and Innovation Center will house 75 researchers, scientists […]
North Star BlueScope Steel, a joint venture between BlueScope Steel Ltd. and Cargill, Inc., increased both earnings and shipments in the first half of FY 2015 ending on December 31, 2014. According financial reports from 50 percent owner BlueScope Steel Ltd, which we multiplied by two, North Star BlueScope shipped 1 million tonnes (1.1 million […]
German steel company SMS is awaiting confirmation from Arkansas state officials to purchase the former Beckmann Volmer building in Osceola, Arkansas. SMS will supply approximately $600 million of steel mill equipment for the future Big River Steel mill. SMS, a provider of integrated systems for the processing of steel and metals, will supply all plants […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in January increased by 372,400 tons to 3.368 million tons. There was a decrease of one shipping day to 21 in January. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments increased from 126,200 in December to 160,400 in January. In the eleven years since 2004 January shipments on average […]
According to data just released by the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI), U.S. service centers shipped 3,523,600 tons of all steel products during the month of January 2015. The daily shipment rate was 167,800 tons per day which was a slight improvement over January 2014 when the daily shipment rate was 165,800 tons. However, last […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum fourth quarter consolidated sales rose 11.7 percent year over year to $2.58 billion. Tons sold increased 4.4 percent year over year to 1,469,300 tons. Carbon steel sales of $1.4 billion fell 5.9 percent sequentially with tons sold down 4.7 percent to 1,999,300 tons. The average selling price per ton of steel […]
The acquisition of Serbian steel mill Zelezara Smederevo by Esmark Europe has fallen through. After 10 months of negotiations, Chairman and CEO James Bouchard announced that a definitive agreement for purchase of the mill could not be reached with the Republic of Serbia. A revised proposal from the Serbian government changed the financial terms and […]
Just last week there was an article about Dennis (DJ) Johnson and in his new position as Vice President, Transformation, at Worthington Industries. Johnson joins others now at Worthington including Jim Mortensen, now Director Strategic Product Development and Pat Loney, Product Manager, Hot Rolled and Coated Products. You might think that most of the leadership […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced a return to profitability with a net income of CDN$26.8 million for the third quarter ending December 31, 2014, after reporting a net loss of CDN 38.6 million for the same period of 2013. Steel shipments for the quarter increased 4.7 percent year over year to 618,538 tons. Average realized sales […]
During the ArcelorMittal earnings conference call which was conducted this past Friday, Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of AM told the analysts on the call, “At ArcelorMittal, we remain confident, that the steel will remain the material of choice for automotive. We are the leader in providing light weighting products and solutions for our automotive customer and […]
USW Local 2251 reports that Essar Steel Algoma is terminating 55 positions due to a decline in plate steel orders. According to a report by Soo Today, most of the employees have not completed their probationary period. The job cuts follow an announcement Jan. 23 confirming a contract for 1500 tonnes of plate for construction […]
ArcelorMittal narrowed its net loss to $1.1 billion in FY 2014 and cut its debt to $15.8 billion, the lowest level since the company was formed in 2006. Cash flow from operations in 2014 totaled $3.9 billion. Consolidated steel shipments for 2014 were up 3 percent year over year to 85.1 million tonnes. Fourth quarter […]
Over the past two days Steel Market Update (SMU) has been attending the 26th annual Port of Tampa Steel Conference in Tampa, Florida. The Port of Tampa sits on 5,000 acres and is the closest U.S. port to the Panama Canal. Early in we got a taste of the rebirth of the downtown construction market […]
SSAB Americas posted sales of SEK 3.5 billion ($421.8 million) in Q4, a 17 percent increase from third quarter. For the full year 2014, the Americas segment had sales of SEK 13.2 billion ($159 million) up from SEK 11.1 billion ($133 million) in 2013. Fourth quarter external steel shipments were down 13 percent year over […]
EUROFER, the European Steel Association, says high levels of steel imports into the European market are “distorting traditional steel trade flows.” Steel imports into the European Union (EU) rose by more than 14 percent. EU steel use grew hesitantly in the second half of 2014, rising just 3.3 percent in 2014. “Weak business conditions in […]
According to The TEX Report, Japan will decrease its shipment of hot rolled coil to South Korea beginning in February. Orders from South Korea for February shipments of HRC have dropped, in some cases by nearly half, due to weakened demand for OCTG in the U.S. Last year Japan exported 2,045,000 tonnes (2,254,188 net tons) […]
Steel Market Update thought it might be worthwhile to pick out some of the comments made by Steel Dynamics CEO Mark Millett during his earnings conference call with analysts late last week. We have focused on comments made about foreign steel, scrap, energy markets and the new Columbus facility. Each of the comments made are […]
On Wednesday, US Steel CEO Mario Longhi announced that a number of equipment outages would occur at various U.S. Steel mills due to maintenance or a lack of orders in the energy segment of their business. US Steel will begin replacing a caster at Granite City with one acquired from the former Sparrows Point facility. […]
The 32-story L blast furnace at Sparrows Point was reduced to rubble on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The steel mill site, once operated under Bethlehem Steel and then RG Steel, has been cleared to make way for new industrial businesses at Sparrows Point Terminal. At 1:15 pm a series of 12 explosives were set off, toppling […]
Steel Dynamics reported a record setting year and fourth quarter 2014. Steel shipments for the quarter were up 51 percent to 2.3 million tons from 1.5 million tons in Q3 2013. Steel fabrication had operating income of $22 million following a loss of $122,000 a year ago. For the full-year 2014 steel shipments totaled 7.4 […]