Ports around the U.S. report steel shipments continue to be strong but congestion at the terminals remains a problem. In the Port of New Orleans iron and steel imports totaled 2.2 million tons in the first eight months of this year—up 84.8 percent from the same period in 2013. “We don’t have November numbers as […]
Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, spoke to the Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) conference this afternoon. Many of the HARDI wholesalers and associated companies are involved with galvanized sheet and coil steels. As SMU prepared to speak to the group we realized that many times the industry references benchmark hot rolled prices and […]
One of the biggest issues that has been holding the domestic steel mill lead times (and prices) in check during calendar year 2014 is the amount of foreign steel coming into the United States. SMU recently reported the U.S. received 4.4 million net tons of imports during the month of October and license data is […]
The following article on the hot rolled futures market comes to SMU from contributing writer Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading for Kataman Metals. Hot rolled coil futures have been quite inactive the past week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. As activity picks back up, it appears the next move will be lower. The forward […]
With buying prices down by approximately $60 per ton over the past two months, we are seeing a lack of feedstock for shredded scrap across the country. The net result is shredded scrap prices are up $5 to $10 per gross ton compared to where they were in November in most regions east of the […]
Flat rolled steel prices began slipping once again as our benchmark hot rolled average broke through the $630 mark for the first time since the middle of March. The new average is now at the lowest level for the calendar year (tied with mid-March) and is poised to set a new low point for the […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data through today, December 2, 2015. Based on the latest data, there were 3,938,330 net tons of steel import license requests for the month of November. This does not mean that the U.S. actually received 3.9 million tons of steel imports during the month of November, but it […]
For the week ending November 29, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,835,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 2.5 percent decrease over the previous week but a 0.5 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.3 […]
Steel Market Update has written a number of articles about the Keystone Pipeline. The pipeline has not been completed due to politics and environmental issues. We received an article from Peter Brebach, CEO of Iron Angels of Colorado which takes a look at the other side of the issue from an economic and environmental perspective: […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other flat rolled steel indexes reported benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down $5-$9 per ton this past week. Our average also declined by $5 per ton and now sits at $637 per ton. With at least one mill offering spot hot rolled at, or below, $600 […]
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) determined on Wednesday that there is reasonable indication that the US steel industry is materially injured by import of welded line pipe from Korea and Turkey. The affirmative vote means the countervailing and antidumping investigation will proceed with a preliminary CV determination due on or about January 9, 2015, […]
The following is a “hypothetical” calculation of the spread between world hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled prices. SMU compares the world hot rolled export price with hypothetical adders for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. This is then compared to the spot (FOB Mill) domestic hot rolled price using the SMU Hot […]
It has been a very quiet week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the U.S. on Thursday. A number of service centers advised SMU that the number of inquiries had dramatically fallen off and there isn’t much need to buy steel at this time. The question isn’t so much where are prices this week […]
Preliminary October import figures show October as the second highest month in the 17 years worth of history we have at SMU. October steel imports were the highest figure since August 1998 when total imports were 4,417,811 net tons. We also address November 2014 imports which we believe will be approximately 3.7-3.8 million net tons […]
For the week ending November 22, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,882,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.5 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.1 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.2 […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of October 2014. This estimation is different than the weekly raw steel production as it is based on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. 50 percent for the weekly estimates. Total raw steel production for the […]
We ended the article above talking about the tight range we have seen on hot rolled coil over the past 12 months. Total price movement from low to high during that time period has been $65 per ton. The question is, will U.S. hot rolled coil prices break through the low of the past 12 […]
Flat rolled steel prices, as reported by Steel Market Update, Platts, CRU this past week (SteelBenchmarker did not report last week) had mixed results. CRU and SMU have hot rolled prices at $634 and $635 respectively. Platts remains stuck at $640 as they have been for a number of weeks now. SteelBenchmarker did not report […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported steel import license data through the 18th of November a little earlier this week. We have done an analysis of the license data and have compared it to previous months to see if we can see any similarities in the numbers. The daily average rate for licenses is shown […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
On October 28, 2014 AK Steel announced a $20 per ton ($1.00/cwt) price increase on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steels. Shortly after, ArcelorMittal and then Nucor advised their customers of specific base price levels on new spot flat rolled orders. Hot rolled was to be offered at $33.00/cwt ($660 per ton or higher) […]
Production in October on a tons per day basis was 4.411 million tons, down from 4.485 in September. This was the fourth month since February when production was <4.5 million metric tons per day. October had one more production day than September and the month’s total increased from 134.562 million to 136.838. Since January 2008 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) is seeing flat rolled steel prices as drifting at this time. We saw slight adjustments in both the upper and lower end of our range on hot rolled compressing our range. Cold rolled was up by $5 per ton while galvanized was unchanged and Galvalume was lower. Market players are sitting […]
Vessels carrying iron ore, metallurgical coal, aggregate and grain continue to work under the force majeure created when ice conditions at the start of the shipping season ended up costing the shipping companies 40 days of lost transit time. At the beginning of the season ice conditions were beyond the Coast Guard’s ice breaking capabilities. […]
Spot prices for 62% Fe iron ore fines, CFR Tianjin Port in China were reported by The Steel Index this morning as being down 4 percent to $72.10/dry metric ton. This is down 4 percent in one day and is, based on TSI records, the lowest we have seen since SMU began tracking iron ore […]
The Wyoming Business Council and JR Simplot Company are hoping to revive a shuttered iron ore mine and build a $500 million iron ore concentrator and pig iron production facility in central Wyoming. The plant would produce cast pigs with a carbon content of 3.5 percent made from low grade taconite ore with an iron […]
For the week ending November 15, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,854,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.8 percent increase over the previous week and a 1.5 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 77.1 […]
Late last week Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our galvanized range to take into consideration the growing number of base prices reaching down to the $35.00/cwt level. Our galvanized range is now $35.00/cwt-$38.00/cwt for new spot orders. Over the weekend we adjusted our hot rolled range to reflect the lower numbers we have been collecting […]
The House of Representatives passed legislation approving construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The project has been delayed for more than five years while seeking presidential approval for the line to cross the U.S./Canada border. The House voted 252-161-1 in support of the pipeline. The Senate will vote on Tuesday and will need 60 votes […]
The following article on the hot rolled futures market comes to SMU from contributing writer Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading for Kataman Metals. Over the past couple of weeks the HRC futures market has traded within a narrow range reflecting mixed sentiment among market participants. There seems to be a divergence of opinion regarding […]