For the week ending February 27, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,692,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.4 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.8 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.4 percent, down […]
Flat rolled & Plate prices have been moving mostly sideways over the past few weeks as little has happened to propel prices higher (or lower) from here. Hot rolled prices have been stuck in the $400-$410 per ton range with SteelBenchmarker at the lower end of the range while SMU ($405) and Platts ($407.50) rounding […]
The American Institute for International Steel reports preliminary steel imports increased significantly to start the year, but they remained far below the level of early 2015. The rest of the press from AIIS follows: Imports grew by 10 percent from December to January, reaching 2.58 million net tons. This, though, was 41.4 percent less than […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel (HRC) The CME HR spot month future settlement reflects minimal price movements in physical markets this month as the […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]
Steel Market Update has been speaking with various scrap sources to see what the market trend looks like as we head into March ferrous scrap pricing negotiations. Virtually all dealers are of the opinion that the market looks to be sideways (same pricing as February) with maybe a little “lean” toward the upside. The dealers […]
Steel Market Update asked steel buyers how they were seeing the flat rolled steel market so far this week. One large Midwest based service center told us, “Eerily quiet.” Other buyers basically provided the same guidance. Hot rolled order books continue to be weak to moderate while cold rolled and coated lead times are extended […]
There has been too little attention paid to the passage of the ENFORCE Act by the U.S. Congress a few weeks back. At least that is how trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz sees it. He warned those at our 2015 Steel Summit Conference that the domestic steel mills were trying to build a “dam” against steel […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated foreign steel import license data this afternoon (February 23rd). Based on a daily license rate of 81,355 tons, February is trending toward 2.2-2.3 million tons. This is slightly lower than the 2.4 million ton pace we saw based on license data through the 16th of February. At 2.3 million […]
For the week ending February 20, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,699,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.2 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.7 percent, up […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been slowly rising since the domestic mills made price increase announcements in early December 2015. Even though the trend has been for higher steel prices for almost three months now, 37 percent of those responding to our flat rolled steel market trends analysis this past week believe prices will rise […]
We actually saw some pull back in hot rolled and cold rolled pricing. The amounts were minimal and, in our opinion, do not represent a deteriorating or change in market direction. The hot rolled market is not as strong as that of cold rolled which is not as strong as that of coated steels. Some […]
One of the questions being asked in the marketplace is how much foreign steel is being ordered and will there be a flood of imports as we move into the months of May and June. There is a portion of the market who believe there will be a flood while others are of the opinion […]
Source World Steel Association with Analysis by SMU. Global steel production in the 12 months of 2015 totaled 1.595 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.33 billion tonnes. The WSA has made no downward revision to capacity as production fell in the course of 2015 making capacity utilization look increasingly dismal. Production in the month […]
SMU has developed a series of reports that cover hot rolled, cold rolled, HDG, other metallic coated, coiled plate and semi-finished slabs. These reports are a detailed drill down into tons by source country and port of entry. Total imports of HR in 2015 were 3,477,187 metric tons. Table 1 shows the tonnage by port […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Assisting Andre with tonight’s article is Jack Marshall also associated with CrunchRisk. Here is how Andre and Jack saw trading […]
All is quiet in the flat rolled steel markets as prices essentially moved sideways, even though we picked up on slightly different ranges which affected our averages slightly. Steel buyers should not interpret this to mean there is weakness in the current market. Instead it is just a normal ebb and flow that we pick […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released foreign steel import license data through the 16th of February this afternoon. Licenses are running in line with what we saw during the month of January. January (which has 31 days) is looking like a 2.6-2.8 million ton month. February should be slightly less than that and currently is […]
For the week ending February 13, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,703,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week but a 0.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, up […]
Flat rolled steel prices are beginning to stabilize according to the most recent revisions in the flat rolled steel indices followed by Steel Market Update. Benchmark hot rolled remained stuck at $410 per ton ($20.50/cwt) at both SMU and Platts while SteelBenchmarker, which reports prices twice per month, published their new HRC number as being […]
In 2015, 4.9 million metric tons of slabs were imported into the US. Of that tonnage 1.8 million tonnes (1,984 million net tons) came into Mobile (bound for AMNS Calvert) and 1.2 million (1.322 million net tons) into Los Angeles (bound for California Steel). Most of the Mobile tonnage came from Brazil and the Los […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Assisting Andre with tonight’s article is Jack Marshall also associated with CrunchRisk. Here is how Andre and Jack saw trading […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]
In the twelve eleven months of 2015 bulk scrap exports were 12,955,000 metric tonnes, down by 9.7 percent from 2014 (14,280,000 net tons). The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages (3MMA) for 2015 and on the annual monthly average for previous years. The graph shows that exports declined for three […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained relatively range bound over the past week with only one product, cold rolled, showing any movement other than sideways. While speaking to steel buyers around the country many of the discussions centered on lead times, demand and what will the mills do next regarding steel prices. The consensus of opinion […]
With the release of the December 2015 Final Census data we thought our readers would like to see not only how imports have fared over the past few years but, how those who are the largest exporters fared as well as those who are involved in the hot rolled, cold rolled and CORE (corrosion resistant) […]
For the week ending February 6, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,685,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.7 percent increase over the previous week but a 1.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.9 percent, up […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of December 2015 was 7,878,660 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. December supply […]
Steel exports from the U.S. dropped 17.2 percent in 2015 to an annual total of 9.97 million net tons. The strong U.S. dollar and a recession in Canada contributed heavily to the decline, says the American Institute for International Steel. More than half of U.S. steel exports go to Canada each year. In 2015 the […]
We were reminded recently of an article we produced on February 24, 2015 regarding our theoretical marginal cost of Steel Making (cost will vary by mill and not included in our formula is any adjustment for running at less than 70 percent capacity levels, SA&G are not included, etc.). We were asked if we could […]