In normal markets it is fairly easy to determine where foreign price offers “should” be based on the indexes of export prices in Asia, Europe, Middle East and elsewhere. SMU wants to begin tonight’s article to warn our readers that we are not in a “normal” market due to antidumping suits and now the Section […]
The following data is from the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): Falls Church, VA. May 1, 2017. Steel imports spiked by nearly a quarter in March, and were almost a third higher than they were a year earlier. March imports increased 24.7 percent from February to 3.4 million net tons, 30.5 percent higher than […]
For the week ending April 29, 2017, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,750,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.0 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.1 percent increase over the revised rate from the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate […]
SMU sources are expecting scrap prices to remain somewhat range-bound as the scrap dealers begin negotiations with the domestic steel mills for the month of May. Most dealers are forecasting May settlement prices to be within $10 per ton of what we saw in April and this can vary from region to region. We understand […]
Steel prices were down across the board this past week according to the indexes followed by Steel Market Update. The biggest drops were on our own indices as we saw large moves in hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel with a smaller move in Galvalume. Our plate prices were up slightly as we continue […]
Essar Steel Minnesota was awarded to billionaire Tom Clarke for $550 million at an auction on Wednesday. Clarke’s group Chippewa Capital Partners, which previously purchased Magnetation, plans to merge Essar Steel Minnesota, now called Mesabi Metallics, with Magnetation and finish the $1.9 taconite pellet plant at the Essar site. Clarke told the Star Tribune that Chippewa […]
Cliffs Natural Resources continues to shore up its balance sheet and focus on reducing its debt. A $72 million debt extinguishment/restructuring charge resulted in a net loss of $30 million for the quarter. Debt was reduced by $550 million during Q1 resulting in total debt at the end of the quarter of $1.6 billion. First […]
Is the newly initiated Section 232 the Black Swan event that will remove steel supply from the market and tip the balance of supply/demand in favor of the domestic steel mills, thus pushing prices to levels not seen since 2008? There should not be any doubt that the make-up of the Trump Administration, coupled with […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel With the exception of HR spot not much has changed this past month in the HR futures curve. When you compare […]
Galvalume imports through the first three months 2017 total 292,843 net tons. If this pace continues throughout the calendar year imports of “other metallic” products (with the majority being Galvalume) could exceed 1.1 million tons despite the antidumping and countervailing duty suits. As you can see by the table below, there has been steady growth […]
We have an unusual market. What Steel Market Update is seeing is confidence by most of the steel mills. They feel there may be some minor adjustments in spot pricing as a few mills jockey to maintain their order books. At the same time, most steel buyers are being supportive of the price levels we […]
For the week ending April 22, 2017, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,715,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.4 percent decrease over the previous week but a 1.0 percent increase over the revised rate from the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released import license data for April as well as Preliminary Census Data for the month of March. The Preliminary Census Data will be finalized in about a week’s time and usually there are only minimal revisions. March foreign steel imports are being reported as being 3.4 million net tons. This […]
Steel Market Update is including the following MetalMiner article about zinc for a number of reasons. The run-up in zinc spot pricing late last year and early this year created a situation where the domestic North American steel mills felt they had no choice but to increase the coating extras used when putting zinc onto […]
Production in the month of March was 144,953,000 metric tons, up from 127,227,000 tons in February. Capacity utilization at 74.0 percent was up from 70.3 in February. The three month moving averages (3MMA) that we prefer to use were 136,737,000 and 71.2 percent respectively. Production in February was severely influenced by the short month. Capacity […]
There has been much discussion about the impact of foreign steel on the U.S. economy and specifically how it impacts the steel industry and steel prices. Most in the steel industry believe foreign steel to be a cancer on world trading while others see it as a way of taking wealth from one country and […]
Flat rolled spot prices are slipping based on an analysis of the Steel Market Update (SMU) and Platts flat rolled steel indexes. We found lower average pricing on hot rolled and cold rolled this week with no movement in galvanized and Galvalume. SMU had plate prices down $20 per ton while Platts kept plate prices […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been going through the import data as presented by the U.S. Department of Commerce going back to 2009 (Great Recession) and looking at the market as we came out of the Great Recession. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 galvanized imports were 1 to 1.5 million net tons. In 2012 and […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As the Flack Global Metals 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. Besides writing futures […]
Earlier today, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order requesting the U.S. Department of Commerce conduct an investigation under the Section 232 statutes (national security) to see if steel and imports of foreign steel are important to National Security interests of the United States. “We’re going to use American steel, we’re going to use American […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released the latest update on foreign steel import license request on Tuesday evening. The data suggest that April will be similar to that of March where license data is at 3.5 million net tons. Both March and the April trend a well above both the 12 month and 3 month […]
The debate these days seems to be centered around how much inventory is really out there, how much is incoming (especially from foreign sources) and how much flat rolled will buyers need to buy come this summer? Earlier today I asked a small steel mill if they believed the low coated inventories (1.65 months) according […]
For the week ending April 15, 2017, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,740,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.2 percent increase over the previous week and a 2.5 percent increase over the revised rate from the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate […]
We saw mixed results this past week regarding flat rolled steel spot prices in North America. Steel Market Update (SMU) only moved one index (hot rolled +$10) while all of the other products remained the same as the prior week. SteelBenchmarker, which only produces pricing twice per month, reported hot rolled and cold rolled prices […]
The following is a press release on steel exports from the American Institute for International Steel with updates from AIIS on 4/18/2017: Falls Church, VA. April 17, 2017. Steel exports rose slightly from January to February to total 827,559 net tons. February exports were 1.1 percent higher than in January and 6.2 percent higher than […]
We believe that misinformation (or lack of) about regional import volumes is often used to influence purchase decisions. Our intent with this analysis of tonnage by district of entry is to describe in detail what is going on in a company’s immediate neighborhood and thus provide a negotiating advantage for our premium subscribers. We are […]
Steel Market Update is asked many times where we think flat rolled steel prices are heading. Our current SMU Price Momentum Indicator is at “Neutral” which means we believe the market to be in transition and, prices could move in either direction from this point. We adjusted our indicator just recently from Higher to Neutral […]
Around the middle of the month Steel Market Update (SMU) will analyze the US Department of Commerce Steel Import Monitoring & Analysis (SIMA) system to see how foreign steel imports are tracking and project total imports for the month based on the mid-month daily average. What we have been tracking is a very high number […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel Interesting week in HR futures as spot retraced back to the mid $650/ST after moving higher the prior week. HR futures […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled coil 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 […]