ArcelorMittal Cleveland General Manager Eric Hague retired June 30, 2017, after 42 years in the Cleveland steel industry. Hauge was instrumental in preserving the blast furnaces when former owner LTV closed the plant in 2001. Instead of a warm idling of the furnaces, Hauge suggested a controversial cold shut down to preserve them from the […]
ArcelorMittal’s Georgetown steel mill may see new life under prospective owner Liberty House Group. A tentative deal has been reached with UK-based Liberty House to purchase the shuttered wire rod facility, but a completed purchase agreement has not been signed. ArcelorMittal is working to reach a successful conclusion to the sale of the Georgetown facility, […]
John Packard, Publisher, Steel Market Update Today I spent a good portion of my time wandering around the United States and Canada soliciting information about flat rolled steel pricing, lead times, Section 232 and anything else steel buyers wanted to talk about. I thought the quote of the day was from a manufacturing company who […]
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz and do not necessarily reflect those of Steel Market Update. There will be more discussion about trade, trade suits and Section 232 in our upcoming SMU Steel Summit Conference, which will include presentations by Leibowitz and others on both sides of the […]
On Monday, our registrations for the Aug. 28-30 SMU Steel Summit Conference surpassed 500 steel and manufacturing executives. We expect to beat last year’s attendance record by 100 attendees as the SMU Steel Summit Conference continues to be the fastest growing steel conference in North America. There are now 46 days to go… We also […]
ArcelorMittal submitted its first proposal to the USW negotiating committee on Monday. According to USW, the three-year keeps wages as is, cuts benefits, raises health premiums and makes changes to retirement contributions. The USW posted the following changes proposed by the Company in an update to members: The company has proposed a three-year contract with […]
According to our survey respondents not much has changed when it comes to how willing steel mills are to negotiate hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steel pricing. Lead times continue to remain short and order books weak. This has created a situation whereby steel mills have to be competitively priced in order to […]
Steel Market Update is speaking at the Cowen & Company conference in New York City this week. On the agenda today were three former “captains of the industry” – Dan DiMicco, John Surma and Keith Busse – each a former CEO of a major steel producer, DiMicco with Nucor, Surma with US Steel and Busse […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 23rd, 2013, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,776 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This number represents a decrease of 15 rigs compared to last week, with oil rigs down 15 to 1,382 rigs, gas rigs down 1 to 387 rigs, and […]
A quick note to advise SMU will publish through Thursday evening and then will be down for the Labor Day Holiday Weekend. We will be back up on Tuesday, September 2nd. Tuesday, September 2nd will also be the beginning of our next steel market survey. As always your business is truly appreciated by all of […]
Sims Metal Management, a metals and electronics recycler headquartered in Australia, announced North American results for FY 2013 ending June 30, 2013. Underlying EBITDA for North American operations rose 30 percent year-over-year to $102.3 million. (Underlying EBITDA is a measure of the actual profits realized by a company used for business process planning, rather than […]
Currency update August 22nd 2013. The Federal Reserve publishes a trade weighted index of the value of the US dollar against a basket of the currencies of our major trading partners on a daily and monthly basis. This is referred to as the Broad Index. The Broad Index appreciated strongly in the 3rd Quarter of […]
New home sales plummeted 13.4 percent to an annualized pace of 394,000 in July, well below Junes’ initially reported 497,000 and the revised pace of 455,000. Economists expected sales to decrease in July to an annualized pace of 490,000, based on the initially reported June figure. Rising rates may be a factor in decreased home […]
Flat rolled steel service centers held 2.17 months of inventory on their floors, according to the results from our latest steel market survey completed on Thursday of last week. This is essentially unchanged from the 2.15 months measured at the beginning of the month and in line with the MSCI data reported at the end […]
Mario Longhi is faced with the daunting task of rebuilding a US Steel afflicted with financial difficulties and labor problems under former CEO John Surma. US Steel has lost money in five of the past seven quarters, most recently $78 million in the second quarter of 2013. When the mantle is passed on September 1, […]
USW Local 8782 and US Steel have concluded negotiations in Pittsburgh but rumors have been rampant about what kind of deal, if any, has been made to resolve the lockout that has been ongoing at Lake Erie Works since April 28. At least two media sources have said that the executive committee is not […]
We got a taste of everything this past week from the various steel indexes we monitor on a regular basis. Platts, which recently has been on the leading edge of higher flat rolled steel prices, scaled their numbers back on both hot rolled and cold rolled this week. CRU budged ever so slightly higher on […]
The European economy finally seems to be on the road to recovery. In figures released by the European Commission, GDP in the second quarter rose by 0.3 percent in the Eurozone—a small but positive indicator of growth. The growth was led by Germany and France where GDP improved by 0.7 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. […]
Ternium, Tenaris and Tecpetrol will jointly build and operate a natural-gas fired combined cycle electric power plant in the Pesqueria area of the State of Neuvo Leon, Mexico. The joint venture, named Techgen, S.A. de C.V., will be owned 30 percent by Tecpetrol, 22 percent by Tenaris and 48 percent by Ternium. The power […]
We have been receiving a number of calls and emails regarding our Steel Summit Conference. Seems like we are disappointing a large number of people by not producing the conference this year. We will make up for it next year. Early indications for September is for shredded scrap to drift another $10 per gross ton […]
Financial Markets: When I last wrote, I mentioned that the SP 500 was likely headed to 1720 before a retracement and then an eventual rally up the 1775 zone. Well the SP 500 reached 1709 on August 2nd from which we have since retraced to 1640 yesterday. We settled today at 1657. In this retracement […]
Lead times slipped slightly across the board compared to where we saw them at the beginning of August. The lead times reported by those responding to our Steel Market Update (SMU) steel survey dropped from 4.5 weeks on hot rolled (weighted average) to 4.11 weeks. This is still well above where we were reporting lead […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The SMU Key Market Indicators and Analysis will become part of the new Premium membership when the new SMU website comes up in September. The total number of indicators considered at present […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained in positive territory this week for the 12th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12 week average spot price as recorded by Steel Market Update. MoMo was […]
JSW Steel Ltd. is considering selling its U.S. mill in Baytown, Texas said reports by Bloomberg. JSW, India’s third largest steel maker, hopes to pay off some of its debt and boost earnings margins by selling the USA asset. In its fourth quarter earnings statement in March 2013, the company reported a decline of 61.56 […]
The Architecture Billings Index jumped to 52.7 in July from 51.6 in June indicating a growing demand for construction design activity. The new project inquiry index, an indicator for future demand, surged 4.1 points to 66.7 in July. “There continues to be encouraging signs that the design and construction industry continues to improve,” said American […]
Completed existing home sales rose 6.5 percent in July to their highest level since November 2009 said the National Association of Realtors. Home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million for the month and were 17.2 percent above sales in July 2012. The median home price shot up 14 percent […]
The Markit Flash U.S. Manufacturing PMI hit a five month high in August. The PMI registered 53.9 up from 53.7 in July indicating moderate growth in the manufacturing sector. New orders increased in August attributed to better demand. Export orders continued to rise this month but softened from July levels. Production output rose slightly in […]
Indicators Suggest No Significant Growth in Steel for the Balance of 2013 The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) and steel consumption. The following is an abridged version of the Chicago Federal Reserve statement plus graphical analysis by Steel Market Update. The index is a weighted average of 85 indicators of national economic activity drawn […]
The new Steel Market Update Executive Newsletter is our existing newsletter updated and with some new twists. Besides the Executive Newsletter we have launched our SMU Monthly Newsletter and will be launching an upgrade (mostly to our website) which will comprise our Premium Newsletter and website access. We had a meeting with our website developers […]