Tuesday is normally the day that Steel Market Update puts out our price ranges and averages on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. As many of you know we are in the midst of our Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta. Due to our antitrust guidelines we did not feel it appropriate to discuss […]
Flat rolled prices dropped for yet another week with benchmark hot rolled coil moving below the $600 per ton mark. The three indexes SMU follows had hot rolled coil averaging $590 to $598 per ton. SMU understands there are offers for HRC out there at the $570 level and potentially less than that for large […]
Essar Steel Minnesota has requested an investigation of Cliffs Natural Resources for violation of antitrust laws. Lawyers for the company filed a motion in bankruptcy court claiming that Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves interfered with state mineral leases and contract negotiations with ArcelorMittal in an effort to thwart the completion of Essar’s iron ore plant. The […]
Iron ore mining company Magnetation announced on Friday that it may shutdown its Minnesota iron ore concentrate plant, rail loading facility and Pellet Plant located in Reynolds, Indiana on or after September 30, 2016. The company intends to continue normal operations until that time. WARN notices have been issued to local officials and the International […]
Cliffs Natural Resources announced it had reached a tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers for a new three year contract. The new agreement would cover 2000 members at Cliffs’ Tilden and Empire mines in Michigan and its United Taconite and Hibbing Taconite mines in Minnesota. Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO, stated, “We are pleased […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of July 2016. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on over 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent […]
The following report on steel imports is from the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS ): Falls Church, VA. August 25, 2016. Steel imports showed strong gains in July, growing by 12.3 percent from June to 3.17 million net tons. July imports, which were down 3.5 percent from July 2015, were boosted by a 77 […]
Steel buyers told Steel Market Update that the domestic mills were clearly hungry for orders on hot rolled steel and getting hungrier for cold rolled orders as well. So far, coated steels (galvanized and Galvalume) have fared better than their uncoated brethren but even coated steels were seeing some pressure on pricing. Buyers were telling […]
For the week ending August 20, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,655,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 4.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 70.8 percent, down […]
The pace of the slippage in flat rolled prices accelerated this past week with many products being reported down $10 per ton or more by the indexes followed by SMU. Benchmark hot rolled was reported to be $15 per ton lower by Platts at $590 per ton while SMU had it down $5 to $595 […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their slow slide as hot rolled offers below $600 per ton became commonplace. We have also seen lead times shrinking, demand in question and service center inventories grow. The combination of these and other factors caused SMU to adjust our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral where it had […]
For the week ending August 13, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,685,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent decrease over the previous week and a 2.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.1 percent, down […]
Foreign steel imports are trending toward once again coming in above both the 3 month and 12 month moving average. The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data earlier today and, based on that information, we are on pace for a 2.8 million ton (net tons) month. This would be lower than the 3.2 million […]
Flat rolled steel prices slipped across the board this past week as the domestic steel mills became more aggressive in order to finish filling their August order books (hot rolled) as well as September (cold rolled and coated). For the first time in many months, Steel Market Update adjusted our hot rolled and cold rolled […]
The following report on steel exports is from the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): Falls Church, VA. August 10, 2016. Steel exports crept up 1 percent from May to June, reaching 811,211 net tons. The June total was down 8.4 percent from a year earlier, however. Exports to Canada were nearly unchanged month-to-month at […]
The SMU monthly import analysis describes the total tonnage by product. It is intended to be a big picture commentary that describes how import volumes are changing and by implication what effect they are having on the macro market. It does not provide any regional information nor does it tell us the country of origin. […]
Steel Market Update is reintroducing our monthly analysis of foreign steel imports into the United States by product, port and country. This report will be available to our Premium level members shortly after the U.S. government releases the Final Census data for each month. The data was just released for the month of June. Since […]
A steel mill told SMU this afternoon, “The week has definitely taken a turn south.” Over the past twenty-four hours a couple of the domestic steel mills have moved their base spot number on hot rolled to $570 to $590 per ton ($28.50/cwt to $29.50/cwt). We are receiving mixed messages regarding whether there are specific […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of June 2016 was 9,098,316 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. June apparent […]
The hot rolled announcement has been made and the market is sifting through the results in order to figure out whether the results are good or bad for the steel industry. Of course, the answer to that question depends on what your end motivation is. Lower prices are good for manufacturing but bad for the […]
As we moved about the market speaking to buyers of flat rolled steel, we found ourselves immersed in a dialogue about demand now being the major driver of steel prices moving forward. SMU spoke with a number of very large flat rolled steel service center buyers who told us that demand is “fragmented” and there […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released Final Census Data for June as well as an update on July import license data earlier this week. Foreign steel imports came in at 2,821,894 net tons during the month of June. This is essentially unchanged from the prior month’s 2,876,358 net tons of imports. July imports, based on […]
For the week ending August 6, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,697,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.0 percent increase over the previous week but a 1.7 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.6 percent, up […]
We saw minor erosion in hot rolled prices this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Both our own index as well as Platts dropped their HRC average by $5 per ton. As of the end of last week Steel Market Update was showing hot rolled as averaging $610 per […]
A couple of the steel mills SMU spoke with today reported their coated order books as being close to closed for September. They reported that there is not a need to make any price adjustments. At the same time, both the mills we spoke with, as well as steel buyers around the country, are anxiously […]
By the end of this week, the U.S. Department of Commerce is scheduled to release their final determinations on hot rolled antidumping and countervailing duties against seven countries: Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Japan, United Kingdom, Turkey and the Netherlands. Combined these seven countries represented roughly 55 percent of all hot rolled imported into the United […]
For the week ending July 30, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,681,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.3 percent decrease over the previous week and a 3.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.9 percent, down […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of June 2016. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on over 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent […]
Flat rolled steel prices are relatively stable for yet another week according to the various steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. SMU took two items slightly lower: cold rolled ($815/ton) and Galvanized .060” G90 ($880/ton). SteelBenchmarker, who only reports prices twice per month, saw hot rolled down $4/ton ($624/ton) and cold rolled was off […]
Cliffs Natural Resources recorded another successful quarter with net income of $30 million for continuing operations compared to a net loss of $38 million in Q2 2015. Adjusted EBITDA was $102 million, driven by higher domestic steel prices. EBITDA included idle expenses of $20 million for the Northshore and United Taconite mines. US iron ore […]