For the week ending August 9, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,896,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.3 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.8 […]
Flat rolled steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update on a weekly basis saw prices continuing to be firm to slightly higher on most products. Benchmark hot rolled coil prices averaged $676 per ton, up $2 per ton compared to the previous week’s average. SMU HRC pricing remained stable at $675 per ton while […]
Total shipments of sheet and strip products including hot rolled, cold rolled and all coated products were down by 0.6 percent year to date (YTD) compared to the first half of 2013. In the second quarter of 2014 compared to the first quarter, the total tonnage was down by 0.7 percent and comparing Q2 2014 […]
Today’s hot rolled coil futures (HRC) article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. In his article he will review the S&P 500, copper pricing, crude oil pricing, steel, iron ore and ferrous scrap futures trading: Well the S&P 500 reached its high […]
Ferrous scrap prices in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and East Coast have been moving sideways as the August negotiations come to a close. We are hearing from our scrap sources that the balance between supply and demand is quite good as flows have been solid and mill orders books are “decent.” Our scrap sources in Chicago […]
Total steel imports dropped during the month of June from the 4.0 million plus tons received during the month of May to 3,611,305 net tons. However, June imports were well above the 12 month moving average (see table below) and were 46.8 percent higher than June of this past year. The biggest drop was in […]
The American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) reports steel exports to NAFTA partners decreased in June but were offset by exports to other countries, particularly Brazil. The AIIS Statement on June 2014 steel exports is reprinted for your convenience below: Falls Church, VA. August 7, 2014. Exports of U.S. steel held steady in June, […]
SMU’s latest ferrous scrap report from Damon Sun of Daido International shows heavy melt scrap holding firm at $350/mt. Scrap imports from the US to Taiwan appear to be on hold. He reports recently selling 5000mt at $343/mt CFR Taichung. Kaoshiung was buying late last week at $348/mt but then stopped buying. Scrap from Thailand […]
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. has appointed Lourenco Goncalves as Chairman, President and CEO, effective immediately. Goncalves, former CEO of Metals USA holdings, will replace Cliff’s Chairman Jim Kirsch and CEO Gary Halverson. “I am honored by the opportunity to lead Cliffs into its next chapter, with a keen focus on improving performance and restoring shareholder […]
Steel Market Update is conducting one of our flat rolled steel market surveys this week. Part of our survey deals with hot rolled pricing, cold rolled pricing, galvanized and Galvalume pricing and what is available in the spot market this week. We are market conditions as being firm but not too firm. Steel executives, buyers […]
License data for July was updated on August 5th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is published in our […]
We are aware that the domestic (USA) steel mills are unhappy with Chinese exports of cold rolled to the United States. The rumors of potential dumping suits against Chinese cold rolled, and possibly coated steel, have been floating about the industry for months. Based on latest import license data for the month of July, Chinese […]
For the week ending August 2, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,901,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.0 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.4 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.0 […]
Last week flat rolled steel prices moved higher by modest amounts, $5 per ton or less with a couple exceptions (see table below). Since the beginning of July our SMU steel price index has seen hot rolled prices move higher by $15 per ton, cold rolled prices by $10, galvanized prices by $10 and Galvalume […]
The HRC futures market has continued its upward trend in the past few weeks with recent bullish events in the physical market supporting prices. While nearby periods remain firm with August and September trading around $650-660, further down the curve cal 15 prices have trended upwards trading up to $643. Similarly, Q1 and cal 15 […]
The domestic steel mills are not canceling any remaining open July scrap orders which is an indication that the mills are busy, need the scrap and do not anticipate being able to buy scrap for less money in August than they did in July. SMU scrap sources are telling us demand is good and supply […]
The following is a “hypothetical” calculation of the spread between world hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA & Canada) hot rolled pricing. Actual HRC price spreads can vary based on freight costs, trader margins and other factors. SMU compares the world export price with an adder for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. against the […]
Imports of steel into the U.S. fell 11.1 percent in June to 3.6 million net tons, the first monthly decline since March. Year-to-date imports of 21 million net tons were 34 percent higher than imports in the first half of 2013. SMU thought it would be interesting to read commentary on the June import data […]
South Korea may take action against the recent DOC decision to impose dumping duties on South Korean OCTG products. According to an article by the Yonhap News Agency in S. Korea, Deputy Trade Minister Choi Kyong-lim told a press briefing that the government is reviewing the impact the decision will have on steel exports from […]
The past couple of days have been ones full of mixed messages. As we report in our article about HARDI wholesalers (see below) their buyers reported galvanized prices as having increased by $20 per ton since the middle of July. We are hearing from a multitude of sources that flat rolled prices have firmed on […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their final raw steel production numbers for the month of June 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 […]
For the week ending July 26, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,920,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.4 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.7 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.8 […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been essentially trending sideways for the past couple of weeks and this past week was no exception. We saw our hot rolled average increase by $3 per ton to $673 per ton with the CRU having the lowest HRC pricing at $667 per ton and Platts the highest at $680 […]
Balance appears to be the word of the week, well at least for this past week while we were canvassing the flat rolled steel industry during our mid-July survey. Steel Market Update invited slightly more than 600 people representing approximately 590 companies to participate in our survey. Of those responding 44 percent were manufacturing companies […]
Preliminary steel import data was updated late last week by the US Department of Commerce, reporting total June imports at 3,585,781 net tons, down 11.1 percent over May levels and down 4.1 percent over April levels. Compared to the same month one year ago, total June 2014 steel imports are up 45.8 percent or 1,125,697 […]
Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC has the honors this week to discuss the financial and HRC, iron ore and scrap futures markets in an attempt to make sense out of what can sometimes feel like total chaos. Financial Markets: Well we’re at all time highs again, having hit an intraday on the September S&P […]
The steel market has been relatively quiet this week, according to one steel buyer we spoke to earlier today. Steel prices which we have been gathering both from our steel market analysis (survey) as well as through direct contact with buyers found flat rolled steel prices to be mostly unchanged from one week ago. There […]
The US Department of Commerce released steel import license data through the first 22 days of the month of July. The most recent license data supports our belief that steel imports will meet or exceed the 3.7 million net tons reported for June and could meet or exceed the 4.0 million net tons received during […]
For the week ending July 19, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,893,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.7 […]
Steel production in June on a tons per day basis was 4.571 million metric tons. The last four months have all been greater than 4.5 million metric tons per day for the first time ever. The three month moving average (3MMA) of production in June on an annualized basis was 1.658 billion metric tons and […]