Category: SMU

Steel sheet prices remain at or near multi-month lows, while plate prices continue edging lower from their mid-2022 peak.

SMU’s Monthly Review provides a summary of important steel market metrics for the previous month. Our latest report includes data updated through November 30th.

After a career in steel spanning four decades, Chuck Schmitt, head of SSAB Americas, will retire next year.

Cleveland-Cliffs has officially had spot HRC prices at $750/st since mid-September.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated attorney and US Air Force Veteran Jamieson Greer to be the next US Trade Representative (USTR).

And so it begins (again). Not to be outdone by Thanksgiving, President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of 25% on all imports from Canada and Mexico. He also threatened to hit all imports from China with tariffs of 10% - an amount that would come on top of a boatload of pre-existing duties and tariffs.

SMU's price indices saw minor fluctuations on sheet products this week, while our plate and Galvalume indices held steady.

On Monday, Nucor published new extras effective Jan, 4, 2025.

The slowdown in North American zinc demand in recent months has played out across all sectors, and CRU now expects it to contract by 3.7% y/y.

Prices were stable to down in November for all seven steelmaking raw materials tracked by SMU, according to our latest analysis.

“We’ll always have Paris,” as the famous line in Casablanca goes. And this month, the global steel industry did as well. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steel Committee met in the City of Lights earlier this month. There was also a meeting of the Global Forum addressing excess steel capacity.

The OECD Steel Committee convened its 96th session last week in Paris, along with the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity. The event brought together 250 government and industry delegates from 40 of the largest steel-producing countries. The Committee’s discussions and presentations were clear: Steel markets worldwide are in dire straits.

SMU’s latest steel buyers market survey results are now available on our website to all premium members. After logging in at steelmarketupdate.com, visit the pricing and analysis tab and look under the “survey results” section for “latest survey results.” Past survey results are also available under that selection. If you need help accessing the survey results, or if […]

Following months of fluctuations, SMU’s Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices rebounded this week, now at multi-month highs. Both of our Indices remain in positive territory and indicate that steel buyers are optimistic about the success of their businesses.

Metallurgical coal production at Metinvest’s Pokrovske Coal operations in eastern Ukraine has declined. But that’s more due to everyday mining challenges than the threat of the Russian army getting closer to the mines, according to the steelmaker and miner based in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine.

It’s once again A Tale of Two Cities in the steel market. Some are almost euphoric about Trump’s victory. Others, some rather bearish, are more focused on the day-to-day market between now and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Steel buyers participating in our market survey this week reported stable mill lead times for both sheet and plate steel products.

Most steel buyers SMU polled this week reported that mills remain willing to negotiate new order pricing.

With climbing imports and falling consumption, the Latin American steel industry has had a challenging 2024, according to an Alacero report.

Now that the dust has settled from the US election, as have the immediate reactions in the equity, bond, and commodity markets, this is a prime opportunity to look at how a second Trump presidency might affect the US steel market.

One of the perhaps unintentional perks of being a trade journalist is the opportunity to travel and cover an array of industry conferences and events. Some I've attended have been at fun locations, like Palm Springs and Tampa, Fla. Others have been in more practical locations, like SMU’s Steel Summit in Atlanta and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) meetings in Washington, D.C.

SMU’s flat-rolled steel prices were mixed this week with slight declines across most products and a modest increase in prices for cold-rolled coil.

US housing starts moved lower through October, declining for a second straight month after peaking in August, according to the latest data release from the US Census Bureau. Total housing starts stood at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 1.31 million units in October, a 3.1% dip from September’s 1.35 million units. At the […]

t this point in the game I think what we can say about Nippon Steel’s proposed buy of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel is that it will go through, it won’t go through, or the outcome will be something new and completely unexpected. Then again, I’m probably still missing a few options.

The price spread between hot-rolled coil (HRC) and prime scrap remained the same in November as both tags were at the levels seen a month earlier, according to SMU’s most recent pricing data.

The number of active oil and gas rigs ticked lower in both the US and Canada last week, according to the latest data released from Baker Hughes.

Flat rolled = 63.4 shipping days of supply Plate = 52.4 shipping days of supply Flat rolled shipments and inventories Flat-rolled steel supply at US service centers remains seasonally high. October inventories increased after edging lower in September – a dynamic driven largely by disappointing demand. October’s report reflects lower demand and stable lead times […]

President-elect Donald Trump continues to send shockwaves through the political establishment (again). And steel markets and ferrous scrap markets continue to be, well, anything but shocking. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." (I thought the quote might have been Yankees catcher Yogi Berra in 1949. Google taught me something new today.)

Wolfe Research's Managing Director Timna Tanners discusses the 'Trumplications' for steel in the coming year in this week's SMU Community Chat.

Ferrous scrap prices were largely rangebound to down at the November settle, market sources told SMU.