Flat rolled steel prices continue to climb and there is quite a range out there when looking at the various indices. It is SMU opinion that the variances are due to collection techniques and the amount of data available to any specific index at the time they produce their numbers. SMU and Platts take into […]
A quick survey of ports shows good warehouse availability for incoming steel products. Los Angeles and Gulf ports saw a significant decline in steel imports in 2015. At the Port of Houston steel import tonnage dropped 28 percent from 6.5 million tons in 2014 to 4.6 million tons in 2015. Tubular product imports are expected […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of February 2016. 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 […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to firm and many buyers are convinced there could be more price increases to come with a tightening foreign market and higher offers for foreign steel coupled with the expectation that ferrous scrap prices will increase by a minimum of $30 per gross ton for April delivery. SMU has been […]
When looking at the import license data it is important to put the data into some sort of context. At this time, SMU expects March 2016 foreign steel imports to total 2.4-2.6 million tons. If correct, March foreign steel imports would be higher than the month of February Preliminary Census numbers by approximately 300,000 tons. […]
Due to the Easter Holiday we did not publish our Comparison Price Indices article over the weekend. However, you didn’t miss anything as here is what we are seeing for hot rolled, cold rolled, coated products and plate from the indexes we followed this past week. Last week hot rolled moved higher by $10 per […]
For the week ending March 26, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,675,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.4 percent increase over the previous week and a 4.6 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.6 percent, up […]
In Sunday evening’s issue of Steel Market Update we published an article highlighting the Platts indices which are used by some mills and their customers to adjust flat rolled steel contract pricing. The other daily index out there is The Steel Index (TSI) which will be the index used for the NASDAQ Midwest Hot Rolled […]
According to data released by the World Steel Association, total world crude steel production for February 2016 was 120,412,000 metric tons, down 6,461,000 tons or 5.1 percent from the previous month. February 2016 production was down 4.1 percent over February 2015 production of 125,575,000 tons. North American production (United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, […]
The American Institute for International Steel reports monthly on steel import levels. We thought our readers might enjoy looking at the data from the AIIS point of view. Here is the press release for imports in February: Falls Church, VA. March 24, 2016. Steel imports fell 16.5 percent in February, as the United States sharply […]
Flat rolled steel buyers are telling Steel Market Update that the domestic mills are getting more aggressive about collecting all, or at least a portion of the latest price increase. Hot rolled continues to be the weakest product, but even in HRC we are seeing the numbers starting to move and we expect them to […]
AK Steel followed the rest of the steel mills as they announced a $30 per ton price increase just 17 days after announcing their last flat rolled increase. This is the third price increase out of AK Steel so far this year. With the latest round of increases, AK Steel minimum base price levels are: […]
There have been four price announcements on flat rolled steel beginning in early December 2015. The first increase was for $40 per ton followed by a succession of $30 per ton announcements. The total of the four announcements is $130 per ton or, $6.50/cwt. Looking at the galvanized markets, when the first price increase was […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released new foreign steel import license request for the month of March 2016. Based on data through the 22nd of the month imports are trending higher than the past two months. At this point, SMU believes imports for March will settle somewhere around 2.6 to 2.8 million net tons. If […]
For the week ending March 19, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,668,000 net tons of raw steel, a 3.1 percent decrease over the previous week but a 4.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.3 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue their march higher this past week. At least that is what our index is telling us. However, when we look at other indexes we do not always get the same picture. There seems to be a split in the numbers with some indexes showing benchmark hot rolled averaging $414 per […]
The following article was written by SMU founder and publisher, John Packard with the assistance of Platts Content Director, Metals Americas, Joseph Innace. Shortly after Steel Market Update (SMU) became a real company I understood the need for the flat rolled steel industry to have an pricing index which was independent and not tied as […]
Earlier this week Nucor Plate Group and SSAB announced price increases on plate products (with SSAB also including hot rolled coil) of $40 per ton. Over the past few months we have seen the plate mills lead the charge with sheet mills following close behind. This week was no different. Three mills announced flat rolled […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated foreign steel import license data earlier this week. The trend is for March steel imports to come in around 2.4-2.7 million net tons or in line with what we saw during the months of January and February 2016. Since we are still early in the month, we are less […]
SSAB followed the lead provided by the Nucor Plate Group and increased spot prices on plate as well as hot rolled coils coming out of their mills. Their increase mirrored the Nucor move of $40 per ton. This is the first increase on hot rolled since SSAB announced a $30 per ton increase on February […]
Base metals are set to increase in 2016 but will be below levels seen at the end of 2014, said Frank Hoffman, IHS senior economist during the IHS First Quarter 2016 Pricing and Purchasing webinar. Production cuts and inventory dynamics along with benign global growth will keep metals prices from rebounding higher. The zinc market […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to move higher over the past week. We are seeing even the weakest product, hot rolled, gaining traction as lead times move out due to the shutdown of US Steel and AK Steel mills (Granite City and Ashland). SMU was advised by both steel mills and steel buyers that orders […]
This afternoon, Nucor’s plate mill group advised their customers through the use of an emailed letter of their intention to raise spot plate prices $40 per ton. The increase was to be effective with new spot orders acknowledged for the week of April 9th production and beyond. They also advised that they would collect the […]
January ferrous scrap exports totaled 607,272 net tons (550,909 metric tons) with Turkey, India, Mexico, Peru, and Taiwan being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 67.3 percent of all scrap exports. Total January ferrous scrap exports were 53.9 percent lower than previous month and 47.1 percent […]
For the week ending March 12, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,722,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.9 percent increase over the previous week and a 7.6 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.6 percent, up […]
We thought our readers might enjoy looking at steel exports data out of the United States from an international perspective. The following is from an American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) press release sent out earlier today: Falls Church, Va. March 15, 2016. Steel exports in January regained some of the ground they lost in […]
The following article was originally produced by the Wall Street Journal on March 14, 2016. The U.S.’s biggest iron ore miner Monday said it would restart a key mine in Minnesota, a positive sign for the battered U.S. steel industry following a small uptick in prices and new import tariffs on foreign steel. Cleveland-based Cliffs […]
Prices jumped this past week on both SMU and Platts indexes (SteelBenchmarker did not report prices last week). These increases come on the heels of the most recent price announcements made a couple of weeks ago. Benchmark hot rolled continues to be the weakest of the flat rolled products and we are seeing some separation […]
Licensed data for February was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on March 8th. At SMU we perform a detailed analysis of this data, an explanation of our methodology is given at the end of this write up. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of February […]
Recently, Steel Market Update produced an article regarding a discussion between Dan DiMicco, former CEO of Nucor and another one of our LinkedIn members who, in a past life, was responsible for buying foreign slabs for a domestic steel mill. Here is a small clip of that conversation: LinkedIn member: Of course I don’t imagine […]