Flat rolled steel prices continue to slip lower as the various indexes watched by Steel Market Update begin to come to a consensus as the spreads between the indexes shrink. Platts dropped their benchmark hot rolled price by $5 per ton and CRU by $2 per ton. SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this week as […]
Are foreign steel prices too low or are US steel prices too high? That is a question faced by trade litigation attorneys Robert Schagrin and Lewis Leibowitz at the recent SMU Steel Summit conference in Atlanta. There is a $300 delta between China and US prices and a $200 delta between Europe and the US […]
Iron ore spot pricing CFR Tianjin port, China was reported by The Steel Index on Friday morning to be $83.6/dmt for 62% Fe fines. During the past week, iron ore pricing has dropped $4.30/dmt or about 5 percent. Over the past 4 weeks, spot pricing has dropped $12.1/dmt or, 12.6 percent. To put this into […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released final census data for July steel imports this past week. Total imports were 3,858,692 net tons which was 247,387 tons greater than what we saw during the month of June. License data is pointing toward a slightly lower total volume for total steel imports during the month of August. […]
AIIS, Falls Church, VA. September 5, 2014 — Steel exports continued to trend downward in July, slipping 3.3 percent to just over 1 million net tons. While exports to Canada were virtually unchanged from June to July at 536,892 net tons, and the amount of steel sent to Mexico increased 7.4 percent to 366,732 net […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained holiday bound and buyers are waiting to see if there is any movement based on the latest lead times and needs that the domestic mills might have. With the combination of the Labor Day holiday on Monday of this week, coupled with inventories starting to rise at service centers (according […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to slip this past week according to our analysis of the various flat rolled price indexes we follow on a regular basis. The benchmark hot rolled average dropped $6 per ton to $671 per ton with SMU being the lowest at $665 and SteelBenchmarker the highest at $677 per ton. […]
For the week ending August 30, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,913,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.0 percent decrease over the previous week but a 3.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.5 […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their final raw steel production numbers for the month of July 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 […]
According to The Steel Index (TSI) spot 62% Fe iron ore fines pricing dropped below $88/dmt and are now at the lowest level recorded since October 2009. TSI reported 62% Fe fines this morning as being $87.30 per dry metric ton (dmt). Iron ore has been sliding since mid-August 2013 when 62% Fe fines where […]
Buyers of galvanized steel know that one of the most critical pieces of building pricing is adding the cost charge by the steel mill to apply zinc to steel. If you have had a chance to explore the ‘Resources‘ section of the Steel Market Update website, you may have come across our Steel Mill section […]
Based on our conversations with steel buyers and analysis of the data we received from steel mills, service centers and end users, we saw some slippage in flat rolled steel prices this week. Not enough to change our position (Neutral) on the market. But, there was enough to make us sit up and take notice. […]
Falls Church, Va. August 26, 2014. Steel imports into the United States continued to grow in July, expanding by more than 6 percent from June and nearly 56 percent from a year earlier. July imports totaled 3.8 million net tons, 221,000 net tons more than in June. Imports from South Korea and Russia showed the […]
Since last week licenses for foreign steel to be imported into the United States during the month of August have retreated slightly and the latest data is now leaning toward import levels to be very close to the just released Preliminary Census number for July of 3.8 million net tons. At this moment, and I […]
For the week ending August 23, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,932,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.7 percent increase over the previous week and a 4.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 80.3 […]
The spreads between the various steel price indexes watched on a weekly basis by Steel Market Update have been shrinking. With the exception of plate (which had price increase announcements during the week) and SMU cold rolled, all of the other flat rolled steel price indices either moved sideways or moved lower this past week. […]
The US International Trade Commission announced Friday that it will impose anti-dumping duties on imports from six of the nine countries accused by U.S. steel producers of dumping OCTG in the US market. The decision includes Korea, who was previously excluded in the preliminary decision, India, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. The Philippines and Thailand […]
Late last week both ArcelorMittal and SSAB advised their customers of their intention to raise plate prices. Both companies followed the Nucor lead which was made on Monday of this past week, to raise carbon as rolled plate by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) and alloy, heat-treated, normalized and quenched and tempered plate prices by $40 […]
With August steel imports looking like they may exceed May’s high of over 4 million tons and the recent influx of steel at the Port of Houston, Steel Market Update asked other U.S. ports to give their assessment of steel volume and port conditions. Port of Los Angeles “The Port of Los Angeles has seen […]
“Everyone wants business,” is how the conversation began with one of our Midwest service center sources. “Everyone has steel to sell,” is what he told us. However, he admitted that the bottom has not dropped out of this market. That feeling of concern was heard in a number of places. Flat rolled steel prices seem […]
TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline has been on hold since 2008 waiting for U.S. presidential approval of the permit to allow the pipeline to cross the U.S./Canada border. President Obama has said he would approve the pipeline only if it did “not significantly exacerbate the climate problem.” Opponents of the pipeline are concerned the pipeline will […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) analyzes foreign steel import license data on a weekly basis. From the data we can see where import tonnages are trending although we are not comfortable calling a specific number as the license data can be suspect until after the month is over. For the second week August license data is […]
U.S. Steel has begun to inform their customers of their intention to raise their zinc coating extras effective October 1, 2014. Unlike Nucor, USS did not go back to their 2011 price extras. Based on our quick analysis, the under .020” thru .018” G90 extra is being increased by $1.05/cwt or 11.3 percent. The new […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been looking at the growth of each flat rolled product during the first six months 2014 vs. the first six months 2013. What we found is how foreign steel has been usurping much of the apparent steel supply growth from the U.S. steel mills. Hot rolled shipments out of the […]
Production in July on a tons per day basis was 4.415 million metric tons, down from 4.590 in June. This was the first month since February when production was less than 4.5 million tons per day. This is not a seasonal effect. Since January 2008 on average, July production has been about the same as […]
On Friday, August 15th, Nucor Plate Mill Group announced an increase on transaction prices for all new spot orders of carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate. Carbon and alloy plate prices were increased by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt). Heat-treated plate prices were increased by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt). Late last week our SMU plate indices average […]
For the week ending August 16, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,919,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.3 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.8 […]
Spreads between the indexes are beginning to narrow as the market has been trending sideways (with a slight upward bias) for a number of weeks. Benchmark hot rolled numbers were up $2 per ton due to SteelBenchmarker reporting new numbers this past week (SteelBenchmarker only reports prices twice per month). The average of all the […]
The Port of Houston warehouses are overflowing with steel. Steel Market Update spoke with a warehouse manager in the area who said “stevedore warehouses and various public warehouse facilities are brimming with materials, both inside and outside storage.” Some warehouses have had to turn away longstanding import customers for inside storage material such as steel […]
One of our contributing writers (and Steel 101 instructor) Peter Wright, analyzes foreign steel import data once every couple of months in order to see how accurate the license data is trending versus the Final Census data which is produced once per month (2 months behind receipt of foreign steel). We recently received Final Census […]