Cliffs Natural Resources reported net income of $6 million for third quarter compared to a net loss of $6.9 million in Q3 2014. Cost cutting brought US Iron Ore Operations cash production costs down 16 percent to $49 per ton; Asian Pacific Iron Ore cash production costs decreased a record 49 percent to $27 per […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) asked a manufacturing company when they thought prices will stop dropping? Their response was both classic and profound, “Prices will stop going down, when they go up. Prices can’t go below absolute zero. Question then becomes as to what defines absolute zero…?” Flat rolled steel prices continued their march lower this […]
For the week ending October 24, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,667,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 69.7 percent, down […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) released Preliminary Census Data for September foreign steel imports on Monday. September imports dropped below 3.0 million net tons and at 2.77 million net tons they were down 5 percent month-over-month. As you can see by the table below hot rolled imports were down by 100,000 tons and […]
Hot rolled prices are poised to crash through the $400 per ton ($20.00/cwt) barrier and head toward lows not seen since 2009 when SMU’s HRC average briefly reached $380 per ton ($19.00/cwt). This past week SMU saw flat rolled steel and plate prices drop on all of the indexes followed by SMU except SteelBenchmarker which […]
Global steel production in 12 months through September totaled 1.613 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.3 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization in September was 69.3 percent with a three month moving average (3MMA) of 69.1 percent, down from 72.2 percent in three months through April. China accounted for 50.5 percent of global production in September. […]
Steel earnings calls began this last week and all of them reference the downturn in the oil industry and its effect on production. Low oil prices, overcapacity, and resulting weak demand for OCTG products continues to force firms to adjust output and workforce. Vallourec Star Steel announced this week that it will begin a third […]
Flat rolled prices dropped $5 to $10 per ton this week as the psychology of the market works against the sellers of steel. Hot rolled continues to be the weakest of the flat rolled products due to the energy, mining and agricultural markets. Other products are faring better (regarding demand) but not to the point […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) released the latest import license data for the month of October. Based on the 2.5 million net tons of license requests through the 20th of the month we are on pace to exceed 3.5 million tons for the month of October. Anything over 2.9 million net tons we […]
This report is a trial balloon and we ask your opinion as to whether such an analysis for the three major sheet products would be of interest. If so, we would go to the expense of purchasing data from the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau, in the UK for the global trade of HR, CR […]
Cliffs Natural Resources is back pedaling after CEO Lourenco Goncalves said he would shut down a plant in the Iron Range if Essar Steel Minnesota goes into production. “If they go online, I will shut down a plant up there the same day,” Lourenco Goncalves said in an exclusive interview with the Mesabi Daily News […]
For the week ending October 17, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,675,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 70.1 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their downward spiral this past week based on our analysis of the four steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. We will be watching prices closely over the next week or two to see if we breach the psychological $400 per ton number on benchmark hot rolled coil. We have […]
During our Steel Summit Conference in September, Lisa Reisman the founder and Executive Editor of Metal Miner told those in attendance that the short term outlook for commodities and steel was bearish. She provided a number of support and resistance price points on a number of steel products as well as aluminum and zinc. In […]
On Tuesday of this week, SMU produced an article about the recent changes in coating extras by most (by not all) of the domestic mills. Within 30 minutes of publishing the article we knew we had made a couple errors of omission as we had The Techs with different extras that their parent company: Steel […]
Flat rolled steel buyers and industry executives reported steel mills in both Canada and the United States as “aggressively looking for business” to run across their lines. Steel Market Update spoke with a manufacturing company on Monday who told us their company had been approached by a domestic mill not usually associated with cheap hot […]
For the week ending October 10, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,705,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.3 percent decrease over the previous week and a 7.3 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.3 percent, down […]
Earlier this year US Steel adjusted their coating extras and the long wait began for other mills to follow suit. In the meantime, spot zinc prices dropped below $0.74 per pound before bouncing back to $0.82 per pound over the past few days. Over the past couple of weeks most of the domestic mills have […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their slide according to the various flat rolled steel market indexes followed by Steel Market Update. The greatest movement was found with benchmark hot rolled which was down double digits on all of the indexes reporting last week. We saw mixed results when reviewing cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and plate […]
SMU has developed a series of foreign steel import reports that enable steel buyers and company executives to see exactly how much imported steel has entered their immediate vicinity and where it came from. This series of reports includes hot rolled, cold rolled, Hot Dipped Galvanized, other metallic coated (mainly Galvalume) as well as semi-finished […]
Steel Market Update received the following letter to the editor from David Phelps, past president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): John, after now over 35 years of watching the steel market and all its ups and downs, I have developed at least some non-infallable thoughts about market ups and downs. Your October […]
Licensed data for September was updated on October 6th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to our […]
A debate has begun as to when flat rolled steel prices will bottom and begin to reverse course. Part of that dialogue is what will supply look like should US Steel go through with balancing their production by temporarily taking down their Granite City Works. This would be on top of the trade suits which […]
The American Institute for International Steel attributes Canada’s struggling economy to the weak rise in U.S. steel exports. Canada buys about half of all of the steel that is shipped out of the U.S., according to AIIS. The August 2015 Steel Exports Press Release from AIIS follows: Falls Church, VA. October 8, 2015. Steel exports […]
In the first eight months of this year bulk scrap exports were 8.801,000 tonnes for an annual rate of 13,202,000 tonnes, down by 15.4 percent from the first eight months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly average […]
Flat rolled steel prices were mixed over this past week based on data reported in our survey as well as the channel checks we were able to make during these past two hectic days. We are aware of offers on hot rolled under $400 per ton but we have not reported the numbers as readily […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released new license data for the month of September and the latest number for foreign steel imports is 2,891,217 tons (net tons). September appears poised to drop 224,000 tons below the August number. The September license data was released at the same time the US DOC reported Final Census Data […]
For the week ending October 3, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,727,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week and a 7.3 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.2 percent, down […]
According to the various flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and plate prices continue to be weak this past week. Benchmark hot rolled was the most stable with all four indexes reporting last week. SMU and Platts were showing the HRC average as being $430 per […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of August 2015. 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 […]