According to data just released by the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI), U.S. service centers shipped 3,523,600 tons of all steel products during the month of January 2015. The daily shipment rate was 167,800 tons per day which was a slight improvement over January 2014 when the daily shipment rate was 165,800 tons. However, last […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum fourth quarter consolidated sales rose 11.7 percent year over year to $2.58 billion. Tons sold increased 4.4 percent year over year to 1,469,300 tons. Carbon steel sales of $1.4 billion fell 5.9 percent sequentially with tons sold down 4.7 percent to 1,999,300 tons. The average selling price per ton of steel […]
“It’s not 2008 or 2009.” We heard this from trading companies, steel service centers and mills during the Port of Tampa Steel Conference this past week. This week we are hearing similar comments as we make our rounds talking to those active in the industry. Prices have been collapsing but there does not appear to […]
The acquisition of Serbian steel mill Zelezara Smederevo by Esmark Europe has fallen through. After 10 months of negotiations, Chairman and CEO James Bouchard announced that a definitive agreement for purchase of the mill could not be reached with the Republic of Serbia. A revised proposal from the Serbian government changed the financial terms and […]
Just last week there was an article about Dennis (DJ) Johnson and in his new position as Vice President, Transformation, at Worthington Industries. Johnson joins others now at Worthington including Jim Mortensen, now Director Strategic Product Development and Pat Loney, Product Manager, Hot Rolled and Coated Products. You might think that most of the leadership […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced a return to profitability with a net income of CDN$26.8 million for the third quarter ending December 31, 2014, after reporting a net loss of CDN 38.6 million for the same period of 2013. Steel shipments for the quarter increased 4.7 percent year over year to 618,538 tons. Average realized sales […]
During the ArcelorMittal earnings conference call which was conducted this past Friday, Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of AM told the analysts on the call, “At ArcelorMittal, we remain confident, that the steel will remain the material of choice for automotive. We are the leader in providing light weighting products and solutions for our automotive customer and […]
USW Local 2251 reports that Essar Steel Algoma is terminating 55 positions due to a decline in plate steel orders. According to a report by Soo Today, most of the employees have not completed their probationary period. The job cuts follow an announcement Jan. 23 confirming a contract for 1500 tonnes of plate for construction […]
ArcelorMittal narrowed its net loss to $1.1 billion in FY 2014 and cut its debt to $15.8 billion, the lowest level since the company was formed in 2006. Cash flow from operations in 2014 totaled $3.9 billion. Consolidated steel shipments for 2014 were up 3 percent year over year to 85.1 million tonnes. Fourth quarter […]
Over the past two days Steel Market Update (SMU) has been attending the 26th annual Port of Tampa Steel Conference in Tampa, Florida. The Port of Tampa sits on 5,000 acres and is the closest U.S. port to the Panama Canal. Early in we got a taste of the rebirth of the downtown construction market […]
Flat rolled steel buyers are resigned to a steel price spot market which takes benchmark hot rolled prices below the $500 per ton ($25.00/cwt) level. One of the large hot rolled service centers this morning told Steel Market Update that they were having a difficult time keeping up with the pace of the falling numbers. […]
SSAB Americas posted sales of SEK 3.5 billion ($421.8 million) in Q4, a 17 percent increase from third quarter. For the full year 2014, the Americas segment had sales of SEK 13.2 billion ($159 million) up from SEK 11.1 billion ($133 million) in 2013. Fourth quarter external steel shipments were down 13 percent year over […]
EUROFER, the European Steel Association, says high levels of steel imports into the European market are “distorting traditional steel trade flows.” Steel imports into the European Union (EU) rose by more than 14 percent. EU steel use grew hesitantly in the second half of 2014, rising just 3.3 percent in 2014. “Weak business conditions in […]
The Material Works, Ltd, (TMW) announced it has dropped plans to open a flat rolled toll processing center adjacent to Big River Steel in Arkansas. The company will instead expand the capacity of its present facility in Red Bud, Illinois, adding a new Eco Pickled Service (EPS) processing and technology center to process advanced high […]
According to The TEX Report, Japan will decrease its shipment of hot rolled coil to South Korea beginning in February. Orders from South Korea for February shipments of HRC have dropped, in some cases by nearly half, due to weakened demand for OCTG in the U.S. Last year Japan exported 2,045,000 tonnes (2,254,188 net tons) […]
Steel Market Update thought it might be worthwhile to pick out some of the comments made by Steel Dynamics CEO Mark Millett during his earnings conference call with analysts late last week. We have focused on comments made about foreign steel, scrap, energy markets and the new Columbus facility. Each of the comments made are […]
On Wednesday, US Steel CEO Mario Longhi announced that a number of equipment outages would occur at various U.S. Steel mills due to maintenance or a lack of orders in the energy segment of their business. US Steel will begin replacing a caster at Granite City with one acquired from the former Sparrows Point facility. […]
The 32-story L blast furnace at Sparrows Point was reduced to rubble on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The steel mill site, once operated under Bethlehem Steel and then RG Steel, has been cleared to make way for new industrial businesses at Sparrows Point Terminal. At 1:15 pm a series of 12 explosives were set off, toppling […]
As we listen to the domestic steel mills earnings conference calls, one of the items we focus on is their viewpoint regarding service center inventories. One year ago the domestic mills were touting the lack of inventory as being one of the drivers of orders which was keeping flat rolled steel prices high. That tune […]
Steel Dynamics reported a record setting year and fourth quarter 2014. Steel shipments for the quarter were up 51 percent to 2.3 million tons from 1.5 million tons in Q3 2013. Steel fabrication had operating income of $22 million following a loss of $122,000 a year ago. For the full-year 2014 steel shipments totaled 7.4 […]
So far Steel Market Update has heard a similar cry in each steel mill earnings conference call. The domestic mills are not happy about the amount of foreign steel coming into the country and the growing percentage of market share foreign steel is taking from the domestic mills. We are hearing a couple of terms […]
So far Steel Market Update has heard a similar cry in each steel mill earnings conference call. The domestic mills are not happy about the amount of foreign steel coming into the country and the growing percentage of market share foreign steel is taking from the domestic mills. We are hearing a couple of terms […]
The 32-story L blast furnace at Sparrows Point was reduced to rubble on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The steel mill site, once operated under Bethlehem Steel and then RG Steel, has been cleared to make way for new industrial businesses at Sparrows Point Terminal. At 1:15 pm a series of 12 explosives were set off, toppling […]
On Monday after the financial markets closed, US Steel announced the company would temporarily reduce operations at their Lone Star Tubular Operations in Lone Star, Texas as well as their Fairfield Tubular Operations in Fairfield, Alabama. USS Fairfield Works, which is the primary flat rolled supplier of rounds to the Fairfield Tubular plant will also […]
AK Steel CEO, James Wainscott, spoke to analysts this morning regarding AK Steel 4th Quarter and calendar year 2014 earnings. We have a separate article which speaks to their earnings. What we have done is to point on some of the highlights of the call from our perspective: AK Steel did a major reline of […]
Nucor Corp. reported net earnings of $210.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to $245.4 million in the third quarter of 2014 and $170.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. The drop was expected due to typical seasonality in the fourth quarter and downward pressure on the industry from steel imports. Net […]
AK Steel claimed its best quarter in three and a half years and its best annual performance since 2008. AK Steel reported shipments of 2,010,200 tons in fourth quarter 2014 compared to 1.42 million tons in Q4 2013. The increase exceeded analyst expectations and was due primarily to strong demand from automotive and the addition […]
Totem Steel International is merging operations with Tata Steel International. JR Meyers, CEO of Totem Steel, told Steel Market Update that the Totem customers will see no change with the exception of having more options for sourcing than the company currently offers. With the financial strength of Tata behind them Meyers expects that they will […]
US Steel earnings reported 2014 net income of $102 million, attributing its Carnegie Way for its first profitable year since 2008. In 2013, US Steel reported a full-year net loss $1.645 billion that included $1.5 billion in impairment and restructuring costs. Net income for fourth quarter was $275 million, compared to $297 million in Q4 […]
Fourth quarter crude steel production at NLMK Indiana decreased 7.6 percent to 162,000 tonnes (178,571 tons) quarter over quarter and was down 1.3 percent year over year. Steel mill capacity was running at 84 percent during Q4. Rolled steel output totaled 483,000 tonnes (532,407 tons), dropping 9 percent sequentially. Decreased sales of hot and cold […]