Category: Region

A press conference at a Cleveland-Cliffs mill in Ohio touched upon several topics, including the unfair trade practices of Mexico and China and Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel.

The Index continues to indicate weak business conditions amongst architecture firms.

Earlier this week, SMU polled steel buyers on an array of topics, ranging from market prices, demand, and inventories to imports and evolving market events.

Uncertainty surrounding demand, the US presidential election, tariffs, and taxes is weighing on North American metalforming companies.

US sheet prices continue to fall, with SMU’s average hot-rolled (HR) coil price now at $670 per short ton (st). Prices for cold-rolled and coated products are now in the mid/high $900s/st. As I noted in my last Final thoughts, the consensus among our readers is that prices will bottom out in July. And that makes intuitive sense. Lead times in mid/late July should be stretching into the typically busier fall months. The question then is where prices bottom.

We have heard ominous warnings about a flood of Mexican steel threatening the US market. It's the kind of rhetoric that gets thrown around often with little regard for the facts. The reality is that the Mexican steel surge is simply not happening, and the US steel industry has consistently maintained a significant trade surplus in finished products with Mexico. In 2023 alone, this surplus exceeded $3 billion.

ArcelorMittal Mexico said it's on the brink of severing labor relations with striking members of the local mining union. This serious move comes as an illegal strike and the resulting mill outage persist into their second month, posing a significant threat to the continuation of the mill’s operations.

Offshore cold-rolled (CR) coil prices are cheaper than domestic product despite US CR coil prices ticking lower. Domestic CR coil tags stand at $995 per short ton (st) on average, down $25/st vs. our prior check of the market on Tuesday, June 18. (We will update prices again on Tuesday, June 25.) All told, US […]

The chairman of a large American steel company called for Mexico to be dropped from USMCA at a steel industry conference last week. This follows earlier calls from members of Congress to reinstate Section 232 duties on Mexico. How did we get to this point?

US drill rig activity eased again last week, now down to levels not seen since late-2021, according to the latest data release from Baker Hughes. Canadian counts are moving in the opposite direction, inching higher for the sixth consecutive week to a three-month high.

SMU’s Current Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Index tumbled this week, while Future Sentiment ticked up slightly, according to our most recent survey data.

Demand has remained persistently weak across the globe for sheet steel, weighing on prices. US HR coil prices fell the furthest this week as high-volume, low-priced deals were transacted as mills looked to fill order books and competed with one another amid relative demand weakness. Meanwhile, European prices were also down due to low demand […]

For the first time in weeks, activity in the futures market broke out of the recent “front grinds lower” pattern to provide new insight into the dynamics of the steel industry.

Steel mill lead times remain short for all steel products tracked by SMU, according to our latest market survey. Service center and manufacturers continue to report short to normal lead times for sheet and plate products.

Outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) said the incoming administration of Claudia Sheinbaum will be able to resolve the woes of shuttered steelmaker Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA). 

US hot-rolled (HR) coil prices fell further this past week, pushing them below offshore hot band prices on a landed basis.

Steel buyers of hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized products found mills more willing to negotiate spot pricing this week, according to our most recent survey data. However, buyers of Galvalume and plate products said mills were less willing to talk price.

ArcelorMittal Mexico is suffering a significant production loss as the labor strike at its mill in Lazaro Cardenas is now in its fourth week.

New York state manufacturers reported dismal business conditions in June. This is the seventh consecutive month of negative readings, according to the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

North American auto assemblies ticked higher in May, moving up for the second straight month and reaching a nine-month high, according to LMC Automotive data. While assemblies were up month on month (m/m), they are still 1.7% lower year on year (y/y).

The conventional wisdom is that sheet prices will trend down for the next few weeks (maybe the next two months) before rising again in August – around when lead times stretch into the busier fall months. We see that reflected in our survey results and in market chatter. And there are plenty of data points to choose from if you want to support of that position.

Offshore cold-rolled (CR) coil prices have changed little, but they are still notably cheaper than domestic product. That remains the case even as US CR coil prices ticked lower this week.

US drill rig activity eased further last week, now down to a two-and-a-half-year low according to the latest update from Baker Hughes. In contrast, Canadian counts inched higher and are now at a three-month high.

As the scrap market for June settles at lowered levels, let’s look at the situation for exports of ferrous scrap from the US East and Gulf coasts. Despite declines in the North American ferrous markets over the last two months, export prices have remained range-bound within a tight trading window. After a brief decline last […]

A roundup of recent aluminum news from CRU.

We’ve been writing a lot about sheet prices, and those for hot-rolled (HR) in particular, coming down. Here's one thing that hasn't dropped: The wide spread between HR and cold-rolled (CR) prices. That's what's in a chart below. And I'm using it as a rough proxy for galv and G'lume base prices as well

Trading activity for the CME HRC futures contract has been sporadic so far in June, with a few days seeing transacted volumes exceed 25,000 short tons (st), but overall activity remains muted. This follows a pattern that emerged over the course of May.

US hot-rolled (HR) coil prices fell further this past week, bringing them even with offshore hot band prices on a landed basis.

Canacero has weighed in on the workers' protest at ArcelorMittal Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas mill, urging a quick resolution to the dispute.

US light-vehicle (LV) sales rose to an unadjusted 1.43 million units in May, up 4.8% vs. year-ago levels, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported. The year-on-year (y/y) growth in domestic LV sales came in with a 7.6% month-on-month (m/m) boost.