Written by: Sandy Williams ILVA Steel executive Fabio Riva, was arrested on Tuesday after turning himself over to British authorities. The arrest was based on a European warrant alleging failure to take precautions against work accidents, corruption of judicial acts, poisoning water or food and making false declarations according to Scotland Yard. Riva is a […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Too many mills and too little demand portend a poor year for the steel industry according to the latest Ernst & Young Global Steel Report. The biggest threat to the steel industry is excess capacity, not excess production, according to Mike Elliott, Ernst & Young Global Mining and Metals Leader. Although […]
Based on our survey results from this past week, SMU found service center inventories have declined slightly from where they were at the beginning of January. Each service center is treated equally in our survey – we do not weigh the survey due to size. As of last week our average was 2.29 months worth […]
The issue of excessive discounting against CRU and other index-based issues raised by ArcelorMittal in their price increase announcement are ones which Steel Market Update has been researching and which we began raising in our last steel market survey. During conversations with service centers, steel mills and end users we were catching frustrations with the […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The Architecture Billings Index showed growth for the fifth straight month in December. The American Institute of Architects reported the ABI score at 52, down slightly from 53.2 in November. The ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The score reflects an […]
Utilizing a trailing average hot rolled coil (HRC) price, the SMU Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained below zero percent this week for the second week after eight consecutive weeks of positive momentum readings. MoMo is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12 week […]
Written by: Sandy Williams World Steel Association figures showed an increase of 1.2 percent in world crude steel output for 2012 at 1.5 billion tonnes (metric tons). Most of that increase came from China which accounted for 46.3 percent of total world output leaving production by the rest of the world relatively flat. Steel output […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk Financial Markets The last of the obstacles to an improving economy, the debt ceiling and the spending cuts etc seem to be rolling over. The Republicans have cleverly put in a temporary debt ceiling increase covering us until May which will be after the budget talks in April and the […]
U.S. Steel verbally began telling their U.S. customers of their intention of raising spot flat rolled prices by $50 per ton. Price increase letters were sent to their customers by Nucor and NLMK USA as they advised their customers of their intention of raising flat rolled spot prices by a minimum of $50 per ton. […]
ArcelorMittal raised flat rolled spot prices on Wednesday and in the process took a shot at the rest of the industry (and perhaps themselves?) when they identified, “The market manipulation and discounting of the CRU has had a dampening effect on industry spot prices.” They then used the most recent index benchmark plus $45 to […]
AK Steel came out with a price announcement – no surprises here. We knew they were positioning themselves to announce. The big question will be with earnings season upon us will the other mills take up the call for increases – or be satisfied with the status quo. The betting money is on the […]
Esmark Inc., Stahlschmidt Inc. and Bouchard Group LLC have announced the joint acquisition of Esmark Technologies. Esmark Technologies will provide technical management services across the steel, manufacturing and industrial sectors and will be based in Cleveland Ohio. Esmark Inc., founded by Chairman and CEO James Bouchard, has strong roots in the steel industry. Current interests […]
Existing home sales slowed slightly in December but limited inventory is fueling price increases, according to the National Association of Realtors. December sales declined 1.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million in December from a downwardly revised 4.99 million in November, but are 12.8 percent above the 4.38 million-unit level in […]
A tropical storm shut down ports in Australia on Tuesday stopping shipment of nearly half of the world’s iron ore trade. Port Hedland, Dampier and Cape Lambert shut down operations as vessels moved out to sea and away from the area. The ports service the mines Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Atlas […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their estimated raw steel production data for the week ending January 19, 2013. According to AISI estimates the U.S. steel industry produced 1,824,000 net tons of raw steel last week. This represents an increase of 0.3 percent compared to the week earlier but is 4.9 percent lower […]
ThyssenKrupp AG held its annual meeting Friday and was attended by thousands of shareholders who were angry at the past year’s failures and anxious to hear what solutions management could offer. Supervisory Board Chairman Gerhard Cromme faced intense pressure from some shareholders to resign over the Steel Americas debacle but held his ground. “If you […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) participates in a monthly conference call with HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil into the HVAC mechanical contractors and related industries for residential and commercial construction applications. The purpose of the call is to discuss steel trends which may impact their regional businesses – this includes domestic mill and […]
An overwhelmingly majority of manufacturers reported service center spot prices as “stable” according to the results of our survey conducted this past week. A full 85 percent of those manufacturing respondents taking our mid-January survey reported no change in spot prices from their service center suppliers. This is an increase of 18 percent compared to […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
As was reported over the past week, Steel Market Update found a number of buyers of varying sizes able to purchase hot rolled coil below $600 in the spot market. We did not find every mill or every region participating in the erosion of the bottom end of our range. What we found is the […]
As Steel Market Update (SMU) checked with various market sources after the AK Steel price announcement we found most of the industry expecting the other domestic steel mills to follow the AK Steel pricing lead. At the same time, most buyers expect the net result to be an end to the current slide in pricing […]
On Monday, January 23rd, AK Steel announced a price increase on all flat rolled steel products of $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt). The price increase is for “spot” orders only and is “effective immediately” according to the press release issued by the company. This is the first price announcement so far during the 2013 calendar year. […]
Steel Market Update was founded because I felt the quality of information (as well as the sourcing of information) was not up to the standards I felt necessary when I was selling steel. I can remember contacting one of the periodicals and asking them why they were referencing prices in a certain way when the […]
Written by: Sandy Williams ArcelorMittal Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico recently launched production of specialized slabs for use in pipelines that transport sour gas. Lázaro Cárdenas is known as a leading producer of high quality, value added steel. In order to increase its share of the growing market for API (American Petroleum Institute) pipes, best technological practices […]
According to Baker Hughes data from January 18th, 2013, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,749 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This number represents a decrease of 12 rigs from last week. Compared to last year the 1,749 count is a decrease of 259 rigs. Canadian rigs increased by […]
November apparent steel supply grew by 8 percent year-over-year to 8,468,720 tons. Imports were up by 28 percent (semi-finished being a major piece up 41.57 percent) while exports shrunk by almost 19 percent to just under 1,000,000 tons (998,040 tons). The United States increased its imbalance as a net importer (YOY) has grown apparent steel […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Creditors of bankrupt RG Steel are seeking court permission to sue Renco Group founder and billionaire Ira Rennert for deliberately delaying the bankruptcy filing of RG Steel in order to protect his own financial interests. RG Steel and its affiliates are 75 percent-owned by Renco, with the remaining equity owned by […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members […]
This week, the SMU Fair Value HRC (hot rolled coil) Model has spot HRC pricing below Fair Value for the first time in nine weeks. This is due to the SMU average spot HRC index decreasing $5 per ton to $620 per ton and scrap inputs remaining the same over last week’s figures. The Fair […]