On Wednesday of this week the U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the months of July and August. Based on only 18 days worth of data, August imports are trending toward another 3.0 million net ton month. The current trend line is for total steel imports for August to […]
Steel buyers are reporting a weakening steel market in both our phone conversations as well as through our survey responses. SMU reported a drop in hot rolled coil prices last week of $5 per ton and we are reporting an additional $5 per ton move lower this week. We are seeing weakness in all products. […]
For the week ending August 15, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,768,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent increase over the previous week but a 8.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.9 percent, up […]
The negative numbers are starting to appear and SMU is hearing from steel buyers that weakness is creeping back into the markets, if only over the short term. However, not all of the indices followed by Steel Market Update saw the market as weakening at all. SteelBenchmarker, in particular, reported bullish results with all of […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of June 2015 was 9,373,498 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. June supply […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in June continue to be more than double that which existed before […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) continued to gather pricing information on the market after our publication of our flat rolled steel price ranges and indices on Tuesday evening. We have found an abundance of information which points to the low end of the range being $440 and not $450 as we published on Tuesday. We have, […]
The following is commentary from the American Institute for International Steel. As is the case with all important issues, there are two sides to every story. 13 August 2015. Falls Church, VA. The recent announcement of the filing of new trade cases on hot-rolled steel and other steel products reminds us that there are multiple […]
USW members at Cliffs Natural Resources are watching labor negotiations at ArcelorMittal and US Steel very carefully. The USW contracts with Cliffs will expire on October 1, 2015 and cover 2,600 employees at four local unions in Minnesota and Michigan. In a statement to the membership, union officials cautioned workers that negotiations at the two […]
Talking to steel buyers this week was like listening to a broken record, “It’s quiet, it’s quiet, it’s quiet….” There has been very little activity and nothing pushing the markets which is quite amazing when you consider the domestic mills have filed three trade cases and are coming up on the September 1st deadline for […]
The Department of Commerce announced on August 11 the initiation of an antidumping investigation into imports of heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipe and tubes from Korea, Mexico and Turkey and a countervailing duty investigation of imports from Turkey. The petition for the investigation was brought forth by Atlas Tube (a division of JMC […]
For the week ending August 8, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,756,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.2 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.4 percent, down […]
Over the past two months the U.S. steel industry has filed antidumping petitions on corrosion resistant (coated steels like galvanized and Galvalume) and cold rolled steels. The rumor mill has been flush with talk that a hot rolled suit will be announced as early as this week. What will the impact be on flat rolled […]
Flat rolled steel prices barely moved this past week according to the steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Hot rolled price averaged $466 per ton with SMU and Platts at $465 and CRU at $467 per ton. Cold rolled was one product where we saw a split between SMU ($580), Platts ($585) and […]
In the first six months of this year bulk scrap exports were 6,893,000 metric tonnes for an annual rate of 13,786,000 tonnes, down by 9.1 percent from the first six months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly […]
The following report was produced by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) regarding U.S. steel exports out of the United States to other countries. At the end of the AIIS press release is a table produced by Steel Market Update with an analysis of both total and flat rolled steel exports. Falls Church, VA. […]
Licensed data for July was updated on August 4th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. Steel Market Update 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 available to […]
Another week has gone by and flat rolled steel prices have barely budged. This even after the domestic steel mills have filed two trade suits (coated an cold rolled). The expectation is that prices will rise sometime in the future but at the moment there appears to be plenty of inventory and lead times continue […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the month of July. Based on the just released data it appears July imports will be approximately 200,000 net tons higher than what was received during the month of June. However, when looking at imports from a 3 month moving average and […]
For the week ending August 1, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,760,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week but a 8.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.6 percent, up […]
Benchmark hot rolled slip a little this past week according to Steel Market Update and CRU, while Platts kept their hot rolled number the same (they haven’t moved in over a month). SteelBenchmarker reported prices and their hot rolled number was up $4 per ton. When all of that was said and done the average […]
The following is a “Letter to the Editor” received from David Phelps, the immediate past president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): I feel obliged to comment on the subject of the new trade cases against CR. First of all, they are ostensibly to protect American jobs and of course, profits and production […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) published our hot rolled range as remaining the same as the prior week at $450-$480 per ton. We continued to collect data as the week has progressed and we received a number of data points at $440 for the low end of the range. We are adjusting our hot rolled price […]
Cliffs Natural Resources reported a net income of $60 million for second quarter, managing a profit in the face of a challenging raw materials environment. Second quarter sales fell 33 percent on weak iron ore prices for total of $498 million, compared to $748 million in Q2 2014. CEO Lourenco Goncalves addressed the “single biggest […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of June 2015. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent for the […]
In light of the antidumping suit which was filed by five domestic steel mills earlier today (or last night if you received the USS email), we wanted to do some analysis for our readers and take a look at the eight countries named and their participation in the CRC market. As you can see by […]
“My offers haven’t changed much in the past 60-90 days,” is what one Texas based distributor told SMU when asked about spot pricing this week. “Still lackluster demand, no change in mill lead times and oil is still below 50. Not much reason for a change unless core demand improves….” At the opposite spectrum we […]
For the week ending July 25, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,740,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices saw little movement this past week in benchmark hot rolled but, we did see some cracks in the “shadow” effect as the spreads between CRU and the other indexes started to widen. These small gyrations in the numbers in any one week may be due to what is being collected and […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has discussed with our readers, on many occasions, that there are three kinds of numbers coming out of the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding steel imports on a monthly basis. First, there are the license data requests which are published every Tuesday evening after 5 PM ET. License data is the […]