For the week ending August 16, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,919,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.3 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.8 […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 15th, 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,913 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count is an increase of 5 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 1 to 1,589 rigs, gas rigs up 5 to 321 rigs, […]
Below is the latest press release issued by the The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) on residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment shipments through June 2014. You may read the press release on their website here. Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for June 2014 increased 6.0 […]
The following is a “hypothetical” calculation of the spread between world hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA & Canada) hot rolled prices. Actual HRC price spreads can vary based on freight costs, trader margins and other factors. SMU compares the world export price with adders for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. against the spot […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained positive this week for the third consecutive week after being in negative territory for the prior six weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements […]
For the week ending August 9, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,896,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.3 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.8 […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 8th, 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,908 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count is an increase of 19 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 15 to 1,588 rigs, gas rigs up 3 to 316 rigs, […]
Based on the latest flat rolled steel market survey conducted by Steel Market Update since the beginning of this week, steel buyers and sellers reported the domestic mills as being less willing to negotiate hot rolled steel prices and continue to be less willing to negotiate cold rolled prices. When we reviewed the data on […]
Total steel imports dropped during the month of June from the 4.0 million plus tons received during the month of May to 3,611,305 net tons. However, June imports were well above the 12 month moving average (see table below) and were 46.8 percent higher than June of this past year. The biggest drop was in […]
Below is a press release from The American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) regarding their response To Russia’s agricultural import restrictions: Falls Church, VA. August 7, 2014. Russia’s retaliatory ban on U.S. and EU food imports announced yesterday signals a significant worsening in diplomatic and economic relations between the countries involved, and could presage further […]
A recent report from the World Steel Association named the top 50 steel producing companies for 2013. ArcelorMittal was the worlds largest producer with 96.1 million metric tons of steel produced, followed by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation producing 50.1 million tons. Third place, with 45.8 million tons, went to Hebei Steel Group, followed […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained positive for the second consecutive week after being in negative territory for the prior six weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
Steel Market Update is conducting one of our flat rolled steel market surveys this week. Part of our survey deals with hot rolled pricing, cold rolled pricing, galvanized and Galvalume pricing and what is available in the spot market this week. We are market conditions as being firm but not too firm. Steel executives, buyers […]
For the week ending August 2, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,901,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.0 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.4 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.0 […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 1st, 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,889 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count is an increase of 6 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 11 to 1,573 rigs, gas rigs down 5 to 313 rigs, […]
The following is a “hypothetical” calculation of the spread between world hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA & Canada) hot rolled pricing. Actual HRC price spreads can vary based on freight costs, trader margins and other factors. SMU compares the world export price with an adder for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. against the […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. turned positive this week after being in negative territory for the prior six weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
The past couple of days have been ones full of mixed messages. As we report in our article about HARDI wholesalers (see below) their buyers reported galvanized prices as having increased by $20 per ton since the middle of July. We are hearing from a multitude of sources that flat rolled prices have firmed on […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their final raw steel production numbers for the month of June 2014. This estimation is different than the weekly raw steel production as it is based on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. 50 percent for the weekly estimates. Total raw steel production for the […]
For the week ending July 26, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,920,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.4 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.7 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 79.8 […]
Balance appears to be the word of the week, well at least for this past week while we were canvassing the flat rolled steel industry during our mid-July survey. Steel Market Update invited slightly more than 600 people representing approximately 590 companies to participate in our survey. Of those responding 44 percent were manufacturing companies […]
Preliminary steel import data was updated late last week by the US Department of Commerce, reporting total June imports at 3,585,781 net tons, down 11.1 percent over May levels and down 4.1 percent over April levels. Compared to the same month one year ago, total June 2014 steel imports are up 45.8 percent or 1,125,697 […]
According to Baker Hughes data from July 25th, 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,883 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count is an increase of 12 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 8 to 1,562 rigs, gas rigs up 3 to 318 rigs, […]
Following the announcement of the sale of Severstal NA to AK Steel and Steel Dynamics, Severstal sent out a letter on Wednesday evening explaining the sale to their customers with assurance that the two mills would continue to run as scheduled over the next few months. A copy of the letter is below: Dear customer, […]
The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) was released on Wednesday morning showing an overall improvement in construction industry. The ABI score for June was 53.5, up from 52.6 in May. Note that the index is centered around 50, with scores above 50 indicating an aggregate increase in billings, and scores below 50 indicating a decline. “The […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S remained slightly negative this week for the sixth week in a row after being in positive territory for the prior ten weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil […]
The steel market has been relatively quiet this week, according to one steel buyer we spoke to earlier today. Steel prices which we have been gathering both from our steel market analysis (survey) as well as through direct contact with buyers found flat rolled steel prices to be mostly unchanged from one week ago. There […]
Chinese steel trade data for June 2014 was released earlier this week, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in June were 74,570,000 metric tons, a decrease of 3.6 percent from the previous month but an increase of 19.7 percent from […]
For the week ending July 19, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,893,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.5 percent decrease over the previous week but a 2.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.7 […]
The world export price for hot rolled bands was at $506 per net ton ($558 per metric ton) according to data released by SteelBenchmarker this past week. The world hot rolled export price is up $2 per ton compared to the report produced in late-June.With an estimated $70 per ton added in order to get […]