April steel exports totaled 794,536 net tons (720,792 metric tons), up 2.5 percent over March but down 5.9 percent from April 2015. Total April figures are above the thee month moving average (average of February, March, and April 2016 figures) but below the twelve month moving average (average of April 2015 through April 2016 data). […]
Cliffs Natural Resources announced today that it will restart its United Taconite mining facility in August. The restart was originally scheduled for October but will occur two months early due to additional pellet tonnage ordered by US Steel Canada. Cliffs is revising its 2016 sales volume guidance to 18 million tonnes from 17.5 million tonnes. […]
Licensed data for May was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on June 3rd. 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 May were […]
Flat rolled prices are beginning to stabilize as a number of mills are not taking orders at this time and those that are are holding fairly firm at where they were a week ago. Our benchmark hot rolled average rose by $5 per ton while cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume averages remained unchanged. When we […]
For many years, SMU publisher John Packard sold ultra light gauge galvanized steels (.019”-.010”) into the furnace pipe manufacturers across the United States and Canada. This product is one that is not championed by the domestic steel industry as the domestic steel mills would rather run thicker steels (more tonnage per hour through their mills) […]
For the week ending June 4, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,760,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.8 percent decrease over the previous week, but a 0.9 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.3 percent, down […]
Compared to what we have been seeing over the past two months, price movement last week was modest with hot rolled barely moving (SMU no change and Platts +$5, SteelBenchmarker did not report last week). Our hot rolled average is now $632.50 per ton. Cold rolled saw SMU take their price average up $15 per […]
The American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) publishes a monthly report on U.S. steel imports. Below is the June report covering the month of April. Falls Church, VA. June 3, 2016. Steel imports decreased by 5.6 percent from March to April, dropping to 2.46 million net tons, 30 percent less than a year earlier. Imports […]
Late this afternoon one of our readers forwarded to us an article from one of the other steel periodicals referencing foreign steel prices as “falling fast.” Steel Market Update’s perspective (and those from our steel trading sources) is different than what another periodical may be reporting. We believe that one must look at the bigger […]
With the extended weekend in the United States there was very little movement in flat rolled steel prices compared to late last week. Our benchmark hot rolled average remained the same although we did pick up some movement, especially with a tightening of the lower end of the range, on the other flat rolled products. […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their long march higher with all three indexes reporting benchmark hot rolled at, or exceeding, $620 per ton (SMU & Platts at $630 per ton). The spread between hot rolled and cold rolled and coated base prices continues to expand with CR at $190-$200 per ton and galvanized at $200 […]
For the week ending May 28, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,775,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week and a 4.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.9 percent, up […]
The domestic steel mills continue to walk prices higher with all flat rolled products except cold rolled moving up by double digits this week. We understand that at least one mill and perhaps more are trying to collect $880 per ton ($44.00/cwt) on cold rolled and coated products. But, we did not hear from any […]
Whenever SMU speaks to steel buyers about flat rolled steel pricing cycles we inevitably hear about how the domestic steel mills have a tendency to over-correct to both the low and the high sides of the cycle (boom/bust). In the process there seems to be an assurance that market volatility will continue to be significant […]
As we write this article we are aware that the US Department of Commerce will be releasing their “Final Determination” on corrosion resistant steels tomorrow (Wednesday). We will cover their announcement in a special edition of SMU once the announcement is made. We thought our readers would be interested in seeing both the build-up of […]
California Steel informed their customers earlier today that they were opening their August order book and their transactional (spot) prices on all flat rolled steel products produced by CSI were being increased as follows: Hot Rolled +$130 per ton ($6.50/cwt)HRP&O +$130 per ton ($6.50/cwt)Cold Rolled +$150 per ton ($7.50/cwt)Galvanized +$150 per […]
For the week ending May 21, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,756,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.7 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.1 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.1 percent, up […]
We tend to see the various steel indexes become more “in tune” with one another once the steel mills decide to take a wait and see attitude about the market. Over the past few weeks, U.S. steel mills have (once again) managed to expand the spread between U.S. steel prices and those of foreign steel […]
We received this letter from a very large manufacturing company located in the United States. We are unable to identify the company but we think the questions posed to SMU should be aired and a dialogue begun within the manufacturing and steel industry. This is a topic which will be discussed at our Steel Summit […]
Production in the month of April at 134,874,000 metric tons was down by 2.0 percent from March but the three month moving average (3MMA) that we prefer as a measure was up by 2.0 percent. Capacity is 2.3 billion tonnes per year and capacity utilization in April was 70.5 percent. There has been a significant […]
Steel Market Update received the following question from one of our readers yesterday (Wednesday, May 18th) regarding the weekly capacity utilization rates that are produced by the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) and are published in our Tuesday evening newsletter. “This morning I was reading the latest SMU report and I was left wondering […]
Flat rolled prices took a bit of a breather this week as buyers and sellers evaluate what will happen next. The expectation is for prices to continue to move higher from here. But, maybe with the potential for a pull back in scrap coming next month, and with the amount of the increases we have […]
For the week ending May 14, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,727,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.2 percent decrease over the previous week, but a 1.3 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.9 percent, down […]
March ferrous scrap exports totaled 1,096,231 net tons (994,485 metric tons) with Turkey, India, Mexico, Korea, and Taiwan being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 73.5 percent of all scrap exports. Total March ferrous scrap exports were 3.6 percent lower than previous month. March figures were […]
“U.S. Steel Sinks as Another Wave of Cheap Imports Predicted” was the headline in Bloomberg on Friday morning. The article cites Axiom Capital Research analyst Gordon Johnson who wrote to his clients, “A boat load of imports are likely on the way.” This opinion permeates the financial community and the pessimism is, in our opinion, […]
Flat rolled prices have been very dynamic over the past few weeks with double digit price changes and, at times, more than one price change during the course of one week. This has kept the steel price indexes busy and has shown the strength and weaknesses of the collection techniques used by each index. Flat […]
The Nucor Plate Group and SSAB have both raised plate prices by a minimum of $40 per ton. The SSAB increase applies to all non-contract business on rolled mill plate, cut-to-length plate as well as hot rolled coils greater than 72″ in width. The SSAB increase includes normalized as well as quench-and-temper plate. Nucor was […]
This week the benchmark hot rolled steel price average was reported by Steel Market Update at $610 per ton, up $40 per ton over the previous week and $120 per ton higher than just one month ago. The numbers reported this week are the highs for this calendar year and, are also the 52 week […]
The following is the March steel exports report from the American Institute for International Steel: Falls Church, VA. May 11, 2016. Steel exports changed little from February to March, though they remained well below the level of a year earlier. The 775,270 net tons of exports were 0.5 percent less than the previous month and […]
We hope the contract customers are paying attention to what is going on in the flat rolled steel spot markets. When the adjustment comes at the end of this quarter there will be some very shocked purchasing people. Spot flat rolled steel prices rose again this week by large double digits. Over the past two […]