Ryerson CEO Eddie Lehner called 2015 “one of the harshest and most difficult metal environments we have seen in terms of magnitude and duration.” Ryerson Holding, a service center company, announced fourth quarter and full year results on Thursday. The company posted a net loss of $20.5 million for the quarter. Revenue was down 23 […]
Brian Jackson, China economist for IHS Global Insight, issued the following note on China’s Steel Production Capacity. Key Points At the National People’s Congress, Hebei Province governor Zhang Qingwei announced he plans to cut just under 200 million of steel production capacity by 2020, or about 60% of current production capacity. By the end of […]
US Steel revealed a new corporate structure for its tubular operations last week. Ownership of the Lorain, Ohio and Fairfield, Ala., operations has been transferred to a new, wholly owned subsidiary US Tubular Operations, LLC. US Steel Seamless Tubular Operations, LLC and the existing US Steel Tubular Products, Inc. (a subsidiary of US Steel Corporation), […]
The Association of Steel Distributors (ASD) has selected the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International® (FMA) to manage their association. ASD will continue to operate as an independent association, but will rely on FMA for management of its day-to-day affairs, membership relations and development, event planning, compliance and reporting issues, and general operation needs. For 73 […]
Platts publishes a monthly China Steel Sentiment Index. The following is a press release from Platts regarding the latest survey results: BEIJING, March 8, 2016 – Optimism has returned to the Chinese steel market on the back of buoyant domestic demand for steel and stronger prices, resulting in the Platts China Steel Sentiment Index (CSSI) […]
US Steel’s Lorain Tubular steel operations will be idled beginning March 27. The plant is expected to remain down for an unspecified time period until order books improve. US Steel spokesperson Sarah Casella said, “We continue to adjust operations at Lorain to meet customer demand.” The sprawling steel complex in Lorain workers includes both US […]
More than 3,000 workers at ArcelorMittal steel mill Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan, Mexico went on what has been classified as an illegal strike on March 4 to protest job cuts and idled operations. Workers marched in a protest rally and placed red and black flags at the doors of the steel company to announce the […]
This week’s DOC preliminary duties on cold-rolled steel effectively shut down the U.S. market for China but has opened it for imports from Taiwan and Vietnam. Taiwan’s largest steel producer, China Steel Corp, said Thursday that it fully intends to take advantage of the penalties its rival steel producers in China now face. The company […]
United Steelworkers voted by a 5:1 margin on Tuesday to ratify a new four-year contract at Allegheny Technologies. The ratification will put 2,220 workers back on the job after a six-month lockout, pending approval by the National Labor Relations Board. A contract was finally hammered out after the NLRB filed an unfair labor suit against […]
United Steelworkers voted by a 5:1 margin on Tuesday to ratify a new four-year contract at Allegheny Technologies. The ratification will put 2,220 workers back on the job after a six-month lockout, pending approval by the National Labor Relations Board. A contract was finally hammered out after the NLRB filed an unfair labor suit against […]
Ontario Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel settled the question of whether a $2.2 million claim by US Steel on its former subsidiary US Steel Canada is equity or debt. It’s debt says the judge. In a decision on Monday, Wilton-Siegel said US Steel’s investment in its Canadian operation was in the form of loans that […]
An Essar Steel Algoma and US Steel Canada combo may be in the works. Bloomberg reports that bidders for US Steel Canada are looking at combining the operations at Algoma with those at Hamilton and Lake Erie Works. The resulting steel company could become a major competitor in the North American steel market. Potential bidders, […]
Workers at Allegheny Technologies received details of the tentative contract proposal on Saturday and were pleased by what they heard. According to TribLive the USW workers said the contract is “better than what we expected” and “overall, it’s not a bad contract.” The new contract includes a $3,500 signing bonus paid over the life of […]
Workers at Allegheny Technologies received details of the tentative contract proposal on Saturday and were pleased by what they heard. According to TribLive the USW workers said the contract is “better than what we expected” and “overall, it’s not a bad contract.” The new contract includes a $3,500 signing bonus paid over the life of […]
US Steel Canada supporters have been waiting a month for a decision by Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel on whether former parent company, US Steel, is owed $2 billion dollars debt or if that amount is an equity investment. Court hearings on the matter ended January 27 with a promise of a decision within two weeks. Trevor […]
The USW negotiating committee for ArcelorMittal posted a passionate 25th update to the USW website on Wednesday, Feb. 24. The committee called ArcelorMittal “hell bent” on ignoring the real issues and insisting on health care and contract demands on “principle” than on true cost savings. The committee and management have been in negotiations for a […]
ArcelorMittal USA has closed the aluminizing line at Indiana Harbor West. Workers have been transferred to a galvanizing line that restarted after being idled near the end of 2014. The closing has been in the works for more than a year and was actually expected in December. ArcelorMittal has been in talks with the USW […]
“It would be an understatement to say 2015 was a difficult year in the steel industry,” said Olympic Steel president and COO David Wolfort during the company’s earnings conference call. Olympic Steel reported a net loss of $5.0 million for fourth quarter 2015 and a net loss of $26.8 million for the full year 2015. […]
Once a month HARDI wholesalers conduct a conference call for those member companies who are involved in the sale of galvanized sheet and coils to the mechanical contractors involved in residential and commercial construction. Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, has been involved with the HARDI organization for many years going back to his steel […]
“We will follow the market,” is what Mark Bula, Chief Commercial Officer at Big River Steel, told SMU during a phone interview late last week. We asked Bula to outline the progress of the mill and when they anticipate beginning production. We learned that with the strength of the cold rolled markets, Big River Steel […]
The United Steelworkers and Allegheny Technologies have reached a tentative agreement on a new four year contract. Approximately 2,220 workers have been out of jobs since August 2015 in what the USW and National Labor Relations Board has termed an illegal lockout. The new contract and back-to-work agreements are subject to ratification by the membership […]
The United Steelworkers and Allegheny Technologies have reached a tentative agreement on a new four year contract. Approximately 2,220 workers have been out of jobs since August 2015 in what the USW and National Labor Relations Board has termed an illegal lockout. The new contract and back-to-work agreements are subject to ratification by the membership […]
BlueScope Steel is one of only a handful of major steel companies around the world that is reporting profit. Underlying EBIT for the first half of FY 2016 was $166.5 million, up 35 percent year over year.. Commenting on the outlook for the company, CEO Paul O’Malley said, “Notwithstanding a challenging macroeconomic environment, we are […]
China’s Ministry of Commerce is calling for European Union cooperation to address the world’s iron and steel overcapacity. Current “trade protectionism” will only have a further negative impact on the industry said Commerce spokesperson Shen Danyang in response to new antidumping measures from the EU. At news conference last week, Shen said overcapacity in the […]
Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments increased by 264,500 tons in January to 2.909 million tons. Shipping days at 20, were down by two from December. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments increased from 120,200 […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released shipment and inventory data for U.S. steel distributors this week. The headline for total steel products is shipments rose from December to January by 275,200 tons or 9.9 percent, but were still 470,400 tons or 13.3 percent below levels from one year ago. U.S. steel service centers shipped […]
A note from the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) regarding a change in data: “For this month’s Metals Activity Reports in Canada, and going forward, there have been changes in the companies in the sample. These changes result in a reduction in the number of product categories being reported. As indicated on the reports Carbon […]
SAULT STE. MARIE, ONTARIO – On January 29, 2016, Essar Steel Algoma appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal to overturn the January 6, 2016 decision of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (“CITT”) regarding dumped and subsidized hot-rolled carbon steel plate and high-strength low-alloy steel plate imports from India and Russia. In their ruling, the […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum reported net income of $68.8 million for fourth quarter of 2014, down 25.7 percent from fourth quarter 2014 but up 33.5 percent from third quarter. Total sales for Q4 were $2.03 billion down 21.4 percent year over year and down 11.4 percent from third quarter 2015. Total tons sold were down […]
Steel Market Update received trade data from one of our sources regarding Chinese imports and exports of various products including steel. The number that the world markets are discussing is steel exports which totaled 112,400,000 metric tons for calendar year 2015 (123,900,000 net tons). These are big numbers. The U.S. domestic steel industry, which is […]