We don’t think the domestic steel mills would have envisioned winning virtually all of their antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) suits and still have foreign steel imports at, or above, 3 million net tons per month. Unfortunately for the domestic mills that is the reality that is sinking into the market (and probably a […]
Manufacturing companies and steel service centers concur about the status of spot steel pricing out of the service centers, spot flat rolled steel prices are dropping. Manufacturing companies reported rising spot prices during the entire second quarter and very early in the third quarter. We saw spot pricing out of the distributors begin to wane […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their move lower with Platts taking their hot rolled and cold rolled averages down by $10 and $25 per ton, respectively. Steel Market Update (SMU) did not move our hot rolled and cold rolled prices on Tuesday of last week but we did make minor adjustments to galvanized and Galvalume […]
Steel Market Update is reintroducing our monthly analysis of foreign steel imports into the United States by product, port and country. This report will be available to our Premium level members shortly after the U.S. government releases the Final Census data for each month. The data was just released for the month of July, you […]
Licensed data for August was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on September 6th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of August were […]
SMU scrap sources advised ferrous scrap prices have settled in Detroit with prime grades (Busheling and bundles) moving lower by $30 per gross ton and shredded scrap by $20 per gross ton. Dealers had been hoping that a slower flow of feeder stock into the yards coupled with stronger buying by long products mills might […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how he saw the financial markets as well as HRC and scrap trading over the past week: The Financial Blah Blah: The U.S has been the bright spot. Just look at […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of July 2016 was 9,095,385 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. July apparent […]
July steel exports totaled 738,096 net tons (669,590 metric tons), down 9.0 percent over June and down 9.2 percent from July 2015. Total July figures are below the thee month moving average (average of May, June, and July 2016 figures) ans below the twelve month moving average (average of August 2015 through July 2016 data). […]
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) released their weekly assessment of the domestic steel mills raw steel production for the week ending September 3, 2016. The AISI reported production as being 1,656,000 net tons with a capacity utilization rate of 70.8 percent. The production rate (based on approximately 50 percent of the industry providing […]
Due to our Steel Summit Conference last week we did not produce our price ranges and averages until Thursday (September 1st). Since then there has been very little movement but we did tweak galvanized and Galvalume numbers slightly. We will be watching to see if the pace of price erosion gains traction from here or […]
Flat rolled steel prices moved lower last week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Our own index saw hot rolled down $30 per ton, cold rolled as being down $10 per ton, galvanized down $20 per ton and Galvalume down $20 per ton. Platts saw their hot rolled average as being […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced Final Census data for July foreign steel imports. July imports surprised to the upside at 3,266,049 net tons. At the same time, based on data through the 2nd of September, August imports are trending toward another 3.0 million net ton month. Both July and August saw a surge in […]
Steel Market Update intentionally did not solicit flat rolled steel price information during our Steel Summit Conference which was held on Monday through Wednesday of this week. Today, as we canvassed the market, we found a significant reduction in prices on all products. We heard reports of “slab rollings” at, or slightly below, $500 per […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
For the week ending August 27, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,642,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 4.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 70.2 percent, down […]
Tuesday is normally the day that Steel Market Update puts out our price ranges and averages on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. As many of you know we are in the midst of our Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta. Due to our antitrust guidelines we did not feel it appropriate to discuss […]
Flat rolled prices dropped for yet another week with benchmark hot rolled coil moving below the $600 per ton mark. The three indexes SMU follows had hot rolled coil averaging $590 to $598 per ton. SMU understands there are offers for HRC out there at the $570 level and potentially less than that for large […]
Essar Steel Minnesota has requested an investigation of Cliffs Natural Resources for violation of antitrust laws. Lawyers for the company filed a motion in bankruptcy court claiming that Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves interfered with state mineral leases and contract negotiations with ArcelorMittal in an effort to thwart the completion of Essar’s iron ore plant. The […]
Iron ore mining company Magnetation announced on Friday that it may shutdown its Minnesota iron ore concentrate plant, rail loading facility and Pellet Plant located in Reynolds, Indiana on or after September 30, 2016. The company intends to continue normal operations until that time. WARN notices have been issued to local officials and the International […]
Cliffs Natural Resources announced it had reached a tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers for a new three year contract. The new agreement would cover 2000 members at Cliffs’ Tilden and Empire mines in Michigan and its United Taconite and Hibbing Taconite mines in Minnesota. Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO, stated, “We are pleased […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of July 2016. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on over 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between foreign hot rolled export prices and domestic hot rolled prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of foreign hot rolled coil prices. We were finding the comparison […]
The prices for flat rolled steel have dropped over the past few weeks which is creating a situation where the domestic steel mills want to recoup a portion (or all) of the reductions by negotiating lower ferrous scrap pricing. The mills are asking for $20 per gross ton across the board (HMS, shred, prime grades) […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Andre and Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how they saw trading over the past week: Steel We traded 961 lots of hot rolled coil (HRC) futures in the week or 19,220 short tons (ST). With the […]
The following report on steel imports is from the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS ): Falls Church, VA. August 25, 2016. Steel imports showed strong gains in July, growing by 12.3 percent from June to 3.17 million net tons. July imports, which were down 3.5 percent from July 2015, were boosted by a 77 […]
Steel buyers told Steel Market Update that the domestic mills were clearly hungry for orders on hot rolled steel and getting hungrier for cold rolled orders as well. So far, coated steels (galvanized and Galvalume) have fared better than their uncoated brethren but even coated steels were seeing some pressure on pricing. Buyers were telling […]
For the week ending August 20, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,655,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 4.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 70.8 percent, down […]
The pace of the slippage in flat rolled prices accelerated this past week with many products being reported down $10 per ton or more by the indexes followed by SMU. Benchmark hot rolled was reported to be $15 per ton lower by Platts at $590 per ton while SMU had it down $5 to $595 […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]