The Association of Steel Distributors is now a technical affiliate of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International, Elgin, Ill. ASD functioned as an independent, nonprofit service center trade group for 75 years, but changing market conditions and flagging membership forced the association to ally with a larger organization to ensure its continued survival. “This is […]
Daily shipments by service centers in May decreased by 1.4 percent from April’s result. On average since 2009, May has increased by 1.3 percent, therefore these latest numbers were a little worse than normal for this time of year. Carbon steel shipments were 148,500 tons per day in May and months on hand on the […]
The Metals Service Center Institute, Rolling Meadows, Ill., has elected Holman Head chairman of the MSCI board, effective July 1. Head is president and chief operating officer of O’Neal Industries, Birmingham, Ala. He replaces Richard A. Robinson, president of Norfolk Iron & Metal Co., Norfolk, Neb., who has served as chairman for the last two […]
JSW Steel (USA) has received approval from its board for a full-scale modernization of its Baytown, Texas, steel plate mill. The project is expected to take 20 months to complete and will result in a fully modern discrete plate mill with significantly more product offerings. “While perfecting the unique plate and contiguous pipe mill facility […]
ArcelorMittal and Marcegaglia have purchased Italian steel milll Ilva in a $2 billion deal expected to close June 30. The mill’s assets will be leased by the consortium AM Investco Italy Srl for $200 million per year with payments applied to the purchase price. AM Investco will receive the steel facility free of long-term debt […]
Mill Steel Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., one of the nation’s largest distributors of flat-rolled carbon steel, expanded its operations and geographic presence with the opening of a new facility in Houston. The new Texas location is now operational with slitting and cut-to-length capabilities in the 100,000-square-foot facility. This premier building houses three production lines with […]
Service center shipments of all steel products totaled 3,420,300 tons for the month of May, up 7.0 percent over year-ago levels, reports the Metals Service Center Institute. MSCI released May shipping, inventories and month’s-on-hand (MOH) data for the United States on Thursday, June 15. The daily shipment rate for May was 155,900 tons, which is […]
Steel shipments by Canadian service centers in May totaled 415,000 net tons, up 14.5 percent from the previous month and up 6.8 percent from May 2016, reports the Metals Service Center Institute. On a daily rate basis, total shipments were 18,900 tons per day in May (a 22-day month), down from 19,100 tons per day […]
Steel Dynamics, Inc., reported lower earnings guidance for the second quarter due to operational issues at two of its plants. An upgrade to Steel Dynamics’ galvanizing line at Butler required a three week outage, diminishing second-quarter pretax earnings by $15 million. In addition, quality issues related to start-up of the new Galvalume and paint line […]
Bedrock Industries received a deal on the purchase of Canada’s Stelco, acquiring it for less than $500 million, according to a report by the Hamilton Spectator. U.S. Steel originally purchased what was then a much larger Stelco for $1.1 billion in 2007. The many transactions required to satisfy creditors, pension payouts, retiree benefits, taxes and […]
Nucor Corp. expects second-quarter results to be somewhat weaker than the first quarter, but an improvement from second-quarter 2016. Results in the range of $1.00 to $1.05 per diluted share will be Nucor’s best second-quarter performance since 2008. In guidance this week, Nucor noted a decrease in the performance of its sheet and bar mills […]
The uncertainty surrounding the Section 232 national security investigation on steel has HARDI members worried about what the steel industry will be like if the ruling favors domestic steel mills and imports are sharply curtailed. In the monthly steel conference call hosted by HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International), members talked about “chaos” and […]
Canada’s Stelco has finally arisen from the ashes of the U.S. Steel bankruptcy. The Ontario Superior Court approved the sale of the mill to Bedrock Steel on Friday, June 9. The company hopes to close the transaction by June 30 and emerge from CCAA protection. “Today marks the turning of the page on a new chapter for […]
Union members at Hamilton Works approved a new contract on Tuesday. June 7, 2017, bringing Stelco, the former U.S. Steel Canada, a step closer to emerging from three years in CCAA protection, Canada’s version of Chapter 11. Ninety percent of the membership cast ballots with 63.8 percent voting in favor of the new collective agreement. […]
A surprise court decision on May 30, denied a request by Canadian steel mill Algoma for approval of a DIP extension agreement and the appointment of a restructuring committee. The current DIP loan expired on April 30, 2017. The agreement would have extended the maturity of the $164 million loan to August 31 with an […]
Today, US Steel Corporation president and chief executive officer David B. Burritt announced new roles and responsibilities for the company’s executive leadership team. Effective immediately, Christine Breves will become Senior Vice President – Supply Chain & Manufacturing Support; Pipasu Soni will serve as Interim Chief Financial Officer; Scott Buckiso will advance to Senior Vice President […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced on Friday, May 26 that the company will now be known as Algoma. The rebranding was revealed during a ceremony at the St. Mary’s River facility to mark a new chapter in Algoma’s history. “Effective immediately, we will have a new name, a new brand, a new path and a renewed […]
ArcelorMittal has won the bidding to take over troubled Italian steel plant Ilva. ArcelorMittal and partner Marcegaglia, an Italian steel processor, offered $2.24 billion for the facility. The two outbid a consortium that included India’s JSW Steel and, Italian specialist steelmaker Arvedi. The deal still needs to be approved by the Italy’s economic development ministry. […]
(AWMI – Mt. Royal, New Jersey, May 25, 2017) – The Association of Women in the Metal Industries (AWMI) is pleased to announce Sonya Malvick as 2016 Member of the Year! Ms. Malvick has been a member of AWMI for 22 years. In that time, she has held the position of Wisconsin Chapter Membership Chair, […]
CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) announced today that it is investing an estimated $176 million to build a hot band galvanizing and pickling line at its sheet mill in Ghent, Kentucky. The new galvanizing line will expand Nucor Steel Gallatin’s product capabilities and have an annual capacity of 500,000 […]
Flat rolled steel distributors are reporting to Steel Market Update (SMU) that their inventories are balanced to slightly over-stocked and there is minimal need to build carbon sheet inventories from here. At the end of March the MSCI reported flat rolled steel inventories at 1.82 month’s supply. Last week the MSCI reported end of April […]
When we saw that shipments had dropped by over 500,000 tons in April our first thought was “Yikes!” but as we looked deeper we saw that shipping days in March were 23 days (their highest in the cycle) and in April fell to 19 days. Daily shipments in April increased by 6.6 percent from March. […]
A contract worker was killed in a work-related accident at US Steel Great Lakes Works in Ecorse, Mich., early Monday morning. The man, a 32-year-old subcontractor for Mid-American Group Inc., fell about 20 feet to his death in an accident reportedly related to a crane collapse. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Association said it […]
Essar Steel Algoma is asking for debtor-in-possession financing to be extended a fourth time until Aug. 30, 2017. In the 31st report of the Monitor, Brian Denega asked that the extension be approved and that a Restructuring Committee be established to take some of the burden of negotiations and restructuring off key executives who can […]
WEST CHESTER, OH–(Marketwired – May 17, 2017) – AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) announced today that it has accepted an award of up to $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Advanced Manufacturing Office’s Next Generation Electric Machines (NGEM) program to develop the next generation of advanced, non-oriented electrical steels (NOES) for […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released their April 2017 shipment and inventories data for the United States and Canada. The following is a recap of the U.S. data. Total steel shipments (all products) were reported to be 3,110,500 tons which was 4.2 percent lower than year ago levels (19 days vs. 21 day month […]
HVAC wholesalers reported despite “good” demand they are seeing ultra-competitive conditions on the sales of galvanized steel they are attempting to sell into the HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning) markets. Steel Market Update participates in a monthly steel conference call hosted by HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International) for their member companies. The HARDI conference […]
Total Canadian steel shipments for all products in April were 362,400 net tons, down 14.0 percent from March and down 2.8 percent from April 2017. On a daily rate, total shipments were 19,100 tons per day in April (19 day month), up from 18,300 tons per day in March (23 day month), and up compared […]
AM Castle, a distributor of specialty metal and supply chain solutions, reported net sales in Q1 2017 of $136 million, a decrease of $28 million or 17 percent compared to Q1 2016 net sales of $164 million, which included the $27 million sale of inventory of the Houston and Edmonton locations. Tons sold per day […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has an active presence on social media. We find LinkedIn in particular an area where we can get our LinkedIn readers involved in a subject prompting questions and responses. In the preamble prior to the posting of an article produced by Steel Market Update entitled “Is Trump Administration the Next Black […]