Flat rolled steel buyers reported steel prices as being essentially unchanged from this time last week. Here is how we see prices this week: Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $600-$640 per ton ($30.00/cwt- $32.00/cwt) with an average of $620 per ton ($31.00/cwt) FOB mill, east of the Rockies. Both the lower and upper end […]
Steel buyers believe that we have reached the top of the flat rolled steel price cycle and that all of the risk is downside from here. Even so, most of the buyers with whom SMU spoke over the past couple of days are not believers in the idea that steel prices will collapse in the […]
For the week ending July 8, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,712,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.4 percent decrease over the previous week and a 2.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.2 percent, down […]
Essar Steel Minnesota entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday after the state of Minnesota revoked the company’s mining leases. Essar Steel Minnesota was given an extension to July 1 after missing a May 1 deadline to pay off its creditors and prove it could finance a plan to complete its promised taconite operation. Essar […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to trade within a relatively narrow range this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Benchmark hot rolled coil was reported as being down $8 per ton by our own index while Platts has kept the product stable for yet another week. SMU HRC average […]
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 May 2016 was 8,957,525 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. May apparent […]
The American Institute for International Steel reports that steel exports from the U.S. rose 1.1 percent from April to May, but are still lower than a year ago. The press release from AIIS follows: Falls Church, VA. July 8, 2016. Steel exports inched up in May, reaching 803,464 net tons. The May total was 1.1 percent higher […]
Galvanized steels continue to see strong bookings at the domestic steel mills with August sold out at all but SDI, The Techs and Wheeling Nisshin according to SMU sources. One of the domestic mills told Steel Market Update earlier this week that coated products were on “autopilot” as bookings remain strong and they were not […]
Licensed data for June was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on July 5th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of June were 2,169,434 […]
Licensed data for July was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on August 2nd. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of July were […]
Flat rolled prices were relatively flat for yet another week as the 4th of July holiday kept buyers and sellers thinking of something other than buying and selling steel. Steel Market Update is picking up signs of slowing order books at a number of mills as the number of “inquire only” products begins to dwindle […]
For the week ending July 1, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,737,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent decrease over the previous week and a 1.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 74.3 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices seem to have stabilized, even if there was some see-sawing among the indexes followed by Steel Market Update this past week. Benchmark hot rolled prices are hovering close to $630 per ton with SMU ($627.50 per ton), SteelBenchmarker ($627) and Platts ($630) all within $3 per ton of each other. Last […]
The flat rolled markets are trying to find where, and what direction, prices should be moving. After being down slightly last week, this week prices are up slightly. There is no clear-cut focus to the market at this moment. As one service center purchasing director put it to us this afternoon, “[Pricing] is all need […]
For the week ending June 25, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,757,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.4 percent increase over the previous week but a 0.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.1 percent, up […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of May 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 […]
Both Platts and Steel Market Update saw flat rolled steel prices as dropping this past week. The question now is this the beginning of a correction or just a bump in the road? From the perspective of ArcelorMittal USA and NLMK USA this is just a bump. If the drop in steel prices continue this […]
The following is the monthly report on exports by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): Falls Church, VA. June 24, 2016. Steel exports increased 2.5 percent from March to April, as both Mexico and Canada increased their purchases from the United States. The 794,537 net tons of exports were almost 6 percent lower than […]
Today two mills began advising their customers of their intention to raise flat rolled steel prices. ArcelorMittal USA and NLMK USA both came out with increases. ArcelorMittal provided specific base price “minimums” while NLMK USA advised their customers of a flat $30 per ton increase. If all of the other mills follow, this would be […]
Flat rolled steel prices slipped this week even as ArcelorMittal USA announced new spot pricing for the month of August. Steel Market Update (SMU) has been noticing a “topping” of the market over the past few weeks and our expectation is for the market to be a little “sloppy” in the coming weeks. We do […]
Manufacturing companies reported steel service center spot prices as continuing to rise this past week. Seventy-eight percent of the manufacturing companies responding to our mid-June flat rolled steel market trends questionnaire said distributors were continuing to raise spot prices on flat rolled steel. The service centers themselves were less optimistic with only 51 percent of […]
For the week ending June 18, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,750,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.6 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.6 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 74.8 percent, down […]
Production in the month of May, at 139,154,000 metric tons, was up by 3.2 percent from April and the three month moving average (3MMA) that we prefer as a measure was up by 4.5 percent. Capacity is 2.3 billion tonnes per year and the 3MMA of capacity utilization in May was 70.5 percent. This report […]
While in New York City this past week Steel Market Update was asked if the spread between ferrous scrap prices and that of hot rolled coil was at historical highs? We were also asked if the spread between hot rolled and cold rolled/coated base prices were also at historical highs. We asked SMU contributing writer […]
There was very little movement in the SMU and Platts indices this past week. SteelBenchmarker, which only produces their index pricing twice per month, saw a modest rise in their numbers as they catch up with the other indices in the market. Hot rolled is about as close as it has been in many months […]
For the third week the data points collected by Steel Market Update found the flat rolled steel market as stable with only one of our indices showing a minor change in our average since last week. Here is how we see prices this week: Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $620-$650 per ton ($31.00/cwt- $32.50/cwt) […]
For the week ending June 11, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,779,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week and a 2.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.1 percent, up […]
Cliffs Natural Resources’ supply agreement with ArcelorMittal “put the final nail in the coffin of Essar Steel Minnesota.” That is the opinion of Star Tribune columnist, Lee Schafer. Schafer has a point, with Cliffs gobbling up Northern steel mill contracts, Essar will have no customers even if it is able to pull itself out of […]
Last week Steel Market Update advised our readers that we were considering removing the Comparison Price Indices article from our newsletter. The index has more value, in our opinion, when there is a wider array of data points available to be compared. We publish only the indices where we have permission to do so. Over […]
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 April 2016 was 8,634,917 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. April apparent […]