U.S. raw steel production for the week ending Jan. 6 totaled 1,649,000 net tons, a 5.0 percent decrease from the same period last year, but up 0.7 percent from the prior week. The mill capability utilization rate for the week averaged 70.7 percent, up from 70.2 percent the prior week but down from 74.5 percent […]
On Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018, Nucor announced a $40 per ton price increase on all spot flat rolled products produced at their steel mills. Their announcement was quickly followed by similar announcements on hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steels (galvanized and Galvalume) by U.S. Steel, NLMK USA and AK Steel. On Friday of this […]
The Nucor Plate Group has increased transaction prices on all new orders for carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate by $50 per ton, effective immediately on any new or unconfirmed orders. Nucor’s Jan. 5 price hike follows on a $50 per ton increase announced Dec. 6 and a $40 per ton increase announced Nov. 15 on […]
During the middle of this past week, a number of the domestic mills, led by Nucor in the east and California Steel in the west, raised flat rolled steel prices. With steel buyers just returning from the extended Christmas and New Years holidays, we found price offers were up, but the actual placement of orders […]
Zinc reached a 10-year high on Thursday, closing at $3,364 per metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Zinc, used for galvanizing metals, has nearly doubled in price over the past two years as supplies have tightened. At the same time, demand has increased. Chinese demand grew by 2.1 percent last year, and U.S. demand […]
Foreign steel imports into the United States were almost five million net tons greater during 2017 than what was reported for 2016. The 13 percent rise in imports was primarily due to higher semi-finished (slabs/billets) being shipped to the domestic steel mills (+1,773,805 net tons). In addition, oil country tubular goods (OCTG) rose by 2,267,574 […]
Nucor led the charge of the East Coast flat rolled steel mills in an effort to keep prices moving higher. On Wednesday, Nucor, followed by U.S. Steel, put out announcements advising customers of their intention to raise spot flat rolled prices by $40 per ton. Soon after, NLMK USA and AK Steel followed Nucor’s lead […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel Since the end of last week, which was very quiet due to year end, the Futures markets have been relatively muted […]
Earlier today, Steel Market Update provided our “Flash Report” on flat rolled steel service center inventories to those distributors who are actively providing months of supply data to SMU. Our first Flash Report prompted three comments from the group that we would like to share with our readers: Service Center One: “This market is the […]
All four raw materials tracked by Steel Market Update— iron ore, scrap, coking coal and zinc—increased in price in December. From Australia News Digest on Dec.18: “Steelmaking raw materials made strong gains on Monday as Chinese mills, responsible for half the world’s steel output, restock ahead of the resumption of full production at the end […]
Flat rolled steel prices barely budged over the past couple of weeks as steel buyers and sellers took a break for the Holidays culminating in the calendar flipping over to 2018. When we asked one commercial manager of a steel mill to comment about pricing earlier today we were told, “Gotta let the market percolate […]
After treading water through the Christmas and New Year Holidays, and then pushed by the most recent price increase announcements (+$40 on flat rolled and +$50 on plate), we are seeing steel prices moving higher by an average of $10 to $20 per ton. The expectation by most steel buyers (not all) is for higher […]
Flat rolled steel prices moved higher over the past week. Hot rolled offers are reaching (or exceeding) $700 per ton, while cold rolled and coated offers are moving into the low to mid $800s (base pricing, before extras). Steel buyers seemed resigned to paying higher numbers with many waiting to see what will happen with […]
The fire at AK Steel helped some buyers to accept the price levels being suggested by the domestic mills. Steel Market Update heard from a number of sources that offer prices were in many cases close to the levels suggested by ArcelorMittal USA in their most recent price announcement: $720 per ton hot rolled ($36.00/cwt) […]
Starting the New Year with a new price, California Steel Industries (CSI) and USS-POSCO Industries (UPI) announced $30 per ton price increases today, Jan. 2. In a letter to customers, CSI stated it is increasing transaction prices on hot rolled, hot rolled pickled and oiled, cold rolled and galvanized flat roll by $30 per ton, […]
The week prior to the Christmas holiday, Steel Market Update conducted a review of the flat rolled steel market and the trends impacting supply, demand and pricing trends. The steel survey, sent to 640 individuals involved in the flat rolled and plate industries, found service centers as more supportive of higher spot prices than they […]
U.S. raw steel production for the week ending Dec. 30 totaled 1,637,000 net tons, a 1.9 percent increase from the same period last year, but down 4.7 percent from the prior week. The mill capability utilization rate for the week averaged 70.2 percent, down from 73.7 percent the prior week but up from 67.8 percent […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel import prices (delivered to USA ports) and domestic (USA) hot rolled coil prices (FOB Domestic mills). We want our readers to be aware that this is only a “theoretical” calculation as freight costs, trader margin and […]
Flat rolled steel prices were essentially unchanged last week (week ending Dec. 29, 2017) due to the Christmas and New Year’s Holidays. The only exception being SteelBenchmarker, which only produces their indices twice per month with last week being one of those weeks. Hot rolled spot prices are hovering at, or near, $640 per ton […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As the Flack Global Metals Director of Risk Management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled futures market, and we believe he provides insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. Besides writing futures articles for Steel […]
Eight out of 10 respondents to this week’s SMU market trends questionnaire believe the fundamentals are pointing toward higher steel prices in the first quarter. As one service center executive commented, “it’s only a question of how high and for how long.” But so far, the price increases announced by the major mills this month […]
Domestic steel orders are strong and flat roll prices are on the rise, which means demand from the mills is likely to push ferrous scrap prices higher in January. “All things are pointing up for ferrous scrap,” said a dealer in the Northeast. Obsolete grades should rise in higher proportions than primes, but all grades will […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) released updated import license data this evening. November license data continues to hover around 2.86 million net tons. Steel Market Update sees December license data trending toward 2.53 million net tons, down from our previous analysis of 2.64 million tons last week. Semi-finished imports were previously trending about 200,000 […]
U.S. raw steel production for the week ending Dec. 16 totaled 1,698,000 net tons, a 5.7 percent increase from the same period last year, but up 1.6 percent from the prior week. The mill capability utilization rate for the week averaged 72.8 percent, up from 71.7 percent the prior week and 67.8 percent the prior […]
Flat rolled and plate steel prices moved higher this past week, according to all of the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Benchmark hot rolled jumped to $640 per ton on both Steel Market Update (SMU) and Platts indexes. SteelBenchmarker did report prices and their HRC average was $626 per ton, up $8 per […]
U.S. steel exports in October totaled 895,879 net tons (812,729 metric tons), down 0.8 percent over September, but up 17.0 percent from October 2016. Total exports have averaged around 880,000 tons over the last few months after reaching a 2.5-year high in May (1,006,087 tons). The total October export figure is below the three-month moving […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel import prices (delivered to USA ports) and domestic (USA) hot rolled coil prices (FOB Domestic mills). We want our readers to be aware that this is only a “theoretical” calculation as freight costs, trader margin and […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel HR futures had a bit of a flurry early this week following the price increase announcements by a number of mills. […]
Flat rolled steel prices jumped this week as buyers and sellers of steel react to the latest round of price increase announcements. Last week, there was a $50 per ton increase announced on steel plate and then later in the week the sheet mills announced a $30 per ton price increase on hot rolled, cold […]
Steel Market Update recently adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to “Higher” as, in our opinion, steel buyers should anticipate flat rolled steel prices to move up over the next 30 to 60 days. During last week’s analysis of the flat rolled steel market, 78 percent of the respondents agreed with SMU, sensing that pricing momentum […]