We are still a couple weeks away from receiving MSCI inventory and shipment data for the month of December. Even so, our most recent steel market survey should provide some insights into what we may see in the MSCI data when it is released later this month. According to those service centers responding to our […]
Written by Brad Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals Last week’s $15 drop down the forward curve has done little to spark new trading interest as prices have bounced a touch off the lows around $620. We are now stuck around the $625 range for the balance of 2013. With the spot indices hovering […]
Based on the results from the Steel Market Update (SMU) steel survey which began on Monday and concluded earlier today, the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index remained mildly optimistic and was measured at +17. This is a 2 point improvement over the +15 reported at the beginning of March. The +17 recorded for the middle […]
It has been a hectic past few days due to my travel schedule – which happened to include a drive from Montreal to Albany, New York in the middle of a snow storm. It has been more than 30 years since I lived in Minnesota…but, the lessons learned those many years ago came in handy […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their estimated raw steel production data for the week ending March 16, 2013. According to AISI estimates the U.S. steel industry produced 1,785,000 net tons of raw steel last week. This represents a decrease of 2.4 percent compared to the week earlier and is 9.9 percent lower […]
Written by: Peter Wright The housing market is important to steel producers and processors for a number of reasons, some of which are not obvious. Not a lot of steel is consumed in wood framed houses but housing starts also lead sales of appliances and other steel items. Starts also positively affect ancillary non-residential construction […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Steel shipments will be flat in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2012 said Steel Dynamics in its first quarter 2013 earnings guidance. Galvanized sheet volume is projected to decrease but be offset by increases in long product shipments, including SBQ, standard railroad rail and wide flange products. […]
Written by: Sandy Williams World steel production in February dropped to 123.2 million metric tons from 129.7 million metric tons in January. China, which accounted for 46.4 percent of total world February production, was at 61.8 million metric tons, down from 63.6 million metric tons the previous month. Compared to the same month in 2012 […]
Written by: Peter Wright Canadian service center tons per day shipments in February were also down overall and for all individual product groups compared to February a year ago. Their total daily shipments were 76.3 percent of the pre recession level, ranging from 102.2 percent for plate to 70.2 percent for sheet. Of all steel […]
Written by: Peter Wright There are three information sources which taken together provide a picture of supply and demand in the U.S. steel market. There are the monthly AISI steel shipments, the Department of Commerce trade statistics and the MSCI report of shipments and inventories. In February total daily carbon steel shipments from service centers […]
Lead times continue to be quite short on all but Galvalume. Hot rolled lead times retreated to —- weeks based on the results from our ongoing SMU steel survey. Cold rolled and galvanized lead times remained relatively stable compared to the beginning of the month. According to our survey responders, mills are more willing to […]
The domestic steel mills continue to struggle to keep the flat rolled steel averages (indices) above benchmark levels. Hot rolled coil, which according to our index rose during the previous two weeks to $615 per ton (average), is now struggling to hold its gains. Other flat rolled items are having their issues and this was […]
Steel Market Update will begin our mid-March steel survey on Monday morning. Invitations will be sent out at approximately 8 AM ET. If you receive an invitation please spend a few moments to click on the link – which will take you to SurveyMonkey.com – to complete our survey. Your opinions are valuable to our […]
According to Baker Hughes data from March 15th, 2013, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,776 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This number represents an increase of 24 rigs from last week. Compared to last year the 1,776 count is a decrease of 208 rigs. Canadian rigs decreased by […]
Written by: Sandy Williams ArcelorMittal outlined a new management savings target of $3 billion by the end of 2015 by improving the reliability, productivity and energy efficiency of its blast furnaces and mills and shifting to low-cost U.S. gas. The company has already streamlined a number of assets though an aggressive restructuring plan in the […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Voestalpine will invest 550 million euro ($718 million) for construction of a DRI plant in San Patricio County near Corpus Christi, TX. The facility will be cable of producing 2 million metric tons of DRI and HBI (hot briquetted iron) annually. A start-up date in early 2016 is projected. Half […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Metalforming companies are expecting business to be steady for the next three months according to the March 2013 Precision Metalforming Association Business Conditions Report. Optimism has been rising since November and has flattened out in February and March. Incoming orders are not expected to change much in the next three […]
Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for January 2013 increased 10.6 percent, to 363,004 units, up from 328,122 units shipped in January 2012. Residential electric storage water heater shipments increased 10.7 percent in January 2013, to 337,111 units, up from 304,529 units shipped in January 2012. Commercial Storage Water […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Iron Ore slid this week to its lowest level since mid-December. As of March 15, ore price at Tianjin Port reported by The Steel Index was $134.6 /dry tonne (Fe62%)—a drop of 8 percent in one week. Coking coal fell as well, dropping to $161 a tonne on March 14 from […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The general business conditions index in New York dropped less than one point to 9.2 in March from 10.0 in February as registered by the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. New orders were positive in March although the index slipped five points to 8.2. Shipments rose at a slower pace for the […]
Written by: Peter Wright Automotive production, inventory and sales; February 2013. Within NAFTA, the Detroit three lost production share in February compared to February last year, dropping from 52.1 percent to 51.5 percent. Performance amongst the three varied wildly with GM and Chrysler loosing 2.2 percent and 0.8 percent respectively as Ford gained 2.1 percent. […]
This week, the SMU Fair Value HRC (hot rolled coil) Model has spot HRC pricing below Fair Value for the fifth consecutive week after briefly rising above the Fair Value price in the week of February 8th. This is due to the SMU average spot HRC index increasing $10 per ton last week to $615 […]
All of the indices followed by Steel Market Update had benchmark hot rolled above $600 per ton with all being above $610 per ton with the exception of the CRU. With the exception of Platts – which has been higher than the other indices for a number of weeks recently – cold rolled could be […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been speaking to a number of service centers regarding their spot sales and especially those sales which are made between service centers or brokers. A number of service centers have been commenting about their spot warehouse business being off over the past three months. Lisa Goldenberg of Delaware Steel told […]
I appreciate all the kind comments we have been receiving over the past few weeks. It appears the addition of Sandy Williams and Peter Wright are net positives for Steel Market Update and I am pleased with the work both of them are doing for SMU. I received the following email from a large Midwest […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Nucor is expecting shares to drop by half in the first quarter of 2013, falling to $0.20 to $0.25 per diluted share from $0.43 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2012 and $0.45 per diluted share in first quarter 2012. Weak performance in sheet steel offset by improved profitability […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Dr. Ulrich Lehner will be elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ThyssenKrupp Ag at a special meeting on March 19. Shareholders and employee representatives of the Supervisory Board have agreed though separate discussions to support Lehner, an internal candidate, for chairman. Lehner has been a member of the Supervisory Board […]
The chart below is for prepainted flat rolled steel imports. What we like to do is to show the base bare substrate and then the prepainted item as separate line items. As with many of our reports, to take the “noise” out we show the 3-month and 12-month moving averages, the change compared to the […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released ferrous scrap export data a little earlier this week. Total exports of scrap in January 2013 were 1,532,498 metric tons (1,689,288 net tons) to all countries. This is a little less than December shipments but above the January 2012 total. Below is a chart of the top 10 countries […]
Utilizing a trailing average hot rolled coil (HRC) price, the SMU Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained below zero percent this week for the ninth week after eight consecutive weeks of positive momentum readings. MoMo is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12 week […]