Steel Market Update (SMU) spend the last 24 hours researching the flat rolled steel markets in an effort to come to a resolution on what the price spread is on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. We found about 90-95 percent of the buyers reporting the domestic steel mills as “firm” in their […]
Steel Market Update went out to a couple of hundred steel buyers and executives today as we probe for information about flat rolled steel prices. At the same time we asked questions about price direction and demand. Tonight we will cover price direction (prior to AM increase announcement) and on Thursday we will cover their […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) reported Preliminary Census Data for the month of October which came in at just under 2.7 million tons (2,681,608 net tons). At the same time the DOC updated license data which we warned last week was being over-stated at close to 3.0 million net tons. According to the license […]
For the week ending November 26, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,598,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week but a 6.5 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 67.4 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their march higher this past week with both SMU and Platts reporting movement in the average prices of hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and plate products. Platts moved their prices by large double digits this past week. Platts took hot rolled up $35 per ton, cold rolled up $45 […]
In the past foreign steel imports have been a key component to the health of the domestic manufacturing base in the United States. Foreign steel helps keep U.S. steel mill pricing reasonably competitive with the world steel markets. The domestic steel mills do not have the ability to produce all of the steel needed when […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to move as the steel buyers absorb the three increases announced by the domestic steel mills going back to October 21st. Most buyers are telling Steel Market Update that this week is relatively quiet due to the Thanksgiving Holiday but the mill remain steadfast in their resolve to garnish higher […]
Many service centers and end users in Colorado and east of the Rockies have known for years that California Steel and USS/POSCO have lower galvanized coating extras than the domestic steel mills located outside of California. On Sunday we published a number of the new extras published by many of the mills located outside of […]
For the week ending November 19, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,606,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.6 percent increase over the previous week and a 7.1 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 67.7 percent, up […]
November foreign steel import license requests picked up since this time last week and the month is now trending toward a 3.0 million plus net tons of imports. We believe the total is slightly over-stated due to the Thanksgiving Holiday and that the long weekend will scale back the pace over the coming days and […]
Flat rolled steel prices increased on two of the three steel indexes with benchmark hot rolled up $45 per ton according to Steel Market Update with Platts reporting HRC prices as being up $10 per ton. SteelBenchmarker, on the other hand, saw HRC prices as being down $4 per ton. So, we have quite a […]
The World Steel Association (WSA) released their provisional October update of global steel production on Friday with the proviso that several countries were late in reporting. When this happens they plug in the missing numbers and, based on our review of past assumptions, we believe their preliminary report is credible. We are, therefore, going ahead […]
Over the past week the domestic steel mills have been revising their galvanized coating extras due to the higher prices for zinc which ended the week at $1.1412 per pound. We have managed to collect a number of the mill extras and we thought our readers would like to see a comparison of the extras […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of September 2016 was 8,106,754 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. September apparent […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled 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 were finding […]
Licensed data for October was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on November 8th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. All volumes in this analysis are reported in short tons. Total rolled […]
Often with steel related economic statistics it’s useful to compare a given data stream with others which may or may not be causally related. This usually puts the steel data into context and shows whether a direction change is for real. In this piece we are comparing the price of Chicago shredded scrap with the […]
With the antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duties cases on hot rolled, cold rolled and CORE (coated products such as galvanized and Galvalume) having gone through the investigation process, decisions on duties or deposit rates for various countries were announced in the Final Determinations. The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has issued deposit rates that […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Andre and Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: The bearishness was so thick 1-2 months ago you could cut it with a knife! The steel futures were getting crushed, […]
Flat rolled steel prices shot up this week in response to two price increase announcements within the past 8 days. ArcelorMittal provided base price guidance on Monday for $560 for hot rolled ($28.00/cwt) and $780 base on cold rolled and coated ($39.00/cwt). A number of mills followed with some announcing $30-$40 per ton and others […]
On Monday ArcelorMittal USA announced their third flat rolled steel price increase in less than a month. The mill informed their customers of their intention to raise base prices on all flat rolled products. On Tuesday NLMK USA followed the AM lead while Nucor and AK Steel came out with a $40 per ton price […]
On Monday NLMK USA advised their customers of their intention to begin collecting new zinc extras on galvanized steel products effective immediately. The new extras are in response to zinc spot prices being at the highest level in the past five years. Zinc closed Monday at $1.1716 per pound up $0.0608 since this past Friday […]
USS/POSCO, the joint venture conversion mill located in California, was the first of the domestic steel mills to raise prices as they opened their January order book. UPI (USS/POSCO Industries) informed their customers last Thursday (November 10th) of their intention to increase their base prices by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt). At the same time UPI […]
US Steel announced new coating extras for galvanized steel on Tuesday. A letter from the company to customers stated the new extras are due to rising zinc prices. The letter from US Steel to its customers is reproduced below as well as the new coating extras chart:
According to the results of our most recent flat rolled steel market trends survey, service center spot prices have taken a dramatic turn in response to the spat of domestic mill price increase announcements. We have consistently seen, through the use of our surveys and our analysis of market price cycles, when flat rolled steel […]
For the week ending November 12, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,580,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.4 percent decrease over the previous week but a 5.3 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 66.6 percent, down […]
Steel trading companies are advising Steel Market Update that we should expect imports of foreign steel to be much lower as we move into the New Year. There are three major reasons for the slowdown in foreign orders: 1) the antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) results fell in favor of the domestic steel mills, thus […]
Is everyone strapped in? The rollercoaster is clearly on the way back up and the question today is will benchmark hot rolled exceed the previous cycle highs of $635 per ton ($31.75/cwt) set in mid-June 2016? Flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update recorded higher average pricing on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, […]
We believe that misinformation (or lack of) about regional foreign steel 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. […]
As we discussed earlier this week, higher international prices for iron ore, coking coal, pig iron and steel are helping take ferrous scrap export prices higher. SMU had lunch with one of our scrap/pig iron experts who advised that 80/20 scrap export prices may have reached $280 per metric ton delivered. At the same time, […]