Contributor: Michael Cowden

Sheet prices were mixed this week, with hot-rolled (HR) coil unchanged but cold-rolled and coated prices down.

I’m writing these final thoughts from the JW Marriott in Tampa. And I’m looking forward to seeing some of you reading this in just a few hours at the opening networking reception of the Tampa Steel Conference. Nearly 550 people will be there – a new record for the event. If you’re looking for things […]

The Tampa Steel Conference is just a few days away. Here are some topics I’m looking forward to learning more about during the proceedings on Monday and Tuesday. For starters, we’ll have about a month of 2024 under our belt when we convene on Sunday. How does that compare to what we thought the start of the year would look like? And what’s the outlook for the balance of the year?

U.S. Steel has idled its USS-UPI LLC subsidiary in Pittsburg, Calif., a company spokesperson confirmed. The idling happened in December, they said in an email to SMU.

Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) reported lower fourth quarter 2023 earnings on Tuesday but predicted good times ahead in 2024. The Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker posted a Q4’23 profit of $424.3 million, down 33.2% from a profit of $634.9 million in Q4’22 on sales that fell 12.3% to $4.2 billion.

Domestic sheet prices slipped again this week, marking the first week of consecutive declines for hot-rolled (HR) coil since September. SMU’s HR price now stands at $1,000 per short ton (st) on average, down $25/st from last week and down $45/st from the start of the year.

Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker Algoma Steel said its blast furnace could be down for approximately two weeks following an incident at its coke batteries over the weekend. “We expect some impact on shipments, the extent of which will depend on the timeline to resume blast furnace operations,” the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based company said

CRU principal analyst Erik Hedborg, who has deep experience in iron ore and in pellets, will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat.

This latest SMU steel market survey is a snapshot of a sheet market inflecting lower. A significant 43% of survey respondents said that the hot-rolled (HR) coil market has already peaked. Compare that to only 8% when we released our last steel market survey on Jan. 5.

There seems to be a growing consensus that the US sheet market has peaked at a high level and could begin losing ground from here. Whether declines happen quickly or whether sheet prices bop around at current levels for a few weeks more is the primary question.

US hot-rolled (HR) coil prices fell noticeably this week for the first time since late September. SMU’s hot-rolled coil price now stands at $1,025 per ton on average, down $25 per ton from last week. Cold-rolled (CR) coil was unchanged at $1,325 per ton.

Bloomberg has reported that Nippon Steel’s $14.1-billion deal for U.S. Steel might not close until 2025 – well after the Q2/Q3 2024 close date both companies have guided toward. That’s because a national security review of the deal ($14.9 billion if you include the USS debt Nippon Steel would assume) by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) could take longer than initially expected

It’s been a sloppy start to the year for domestic hot-rolled (HR) coil and ferrous scrap markets. One of the loudest things to happen in HR this year might be something that didn’t happen at all. Namely, Nucor didn’t follow competitor Cleveland-Cliffs higher when Cliffs announced a price hike to start the year.

I expected that we’d start off January with prime scrap prices modestly up if for no other reason than industrial activity typically slows down over the holidays. And mills’ appetite for scrap typically increases in anticipation of stronger Q1 order activity.

Hot-rolled (HR) coil prices remain in the holding pattern they've been in since mid-December, according to SMU pricing archives.

I’d have been surprised if anyone told me just last week that the January scrap market might move lower. What we saw on Friday were offers. Not settlements. And no doubt there are still some twists and turns in store before we can say for sure which way scrap will go.

Cleveland-Cliffs didn’t wait long to roll out the first price increase of the year - $1,150 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled coil. That’s up $50 per ton from the steelmaker’s last published price. Will anyone follow? I’ve heard some mills are meeting this week but that any announcement might not come until next week. We'll see.

Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker Algoma Steel Group Inc. guided toward lower earnings in its fiscal 2024 third quarter, citing the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike and lower steel prices last fall.

New Reibus CEO Temy Mancusi-Ungaro and company President Chris Shipp will join SMU for the inaugural Community Chat of 2024 on Wednesday, Jan. 10, at 11 am ET. You can register here.

SMU doesn’t do forecasts. We leave that to our colleagues at CRU. But we’re pretty good at surveys, and we’ve got a great group of readers. That’s why we decided to ask you what’s in store for 2024. The results are below, along with some insightful comments in italics.

Sheet prices were mixed in SMU’s first assessment of the market in the New Year.

Steel Market Update plans to take some time off for Christmas and the New Year holiday.

A White House official said the planned $14.1-billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan's Nippon Steel deserved a closer look. President Joe Biden "believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity—even one from a close ally—appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability."

Metalformers remain optimistic about business prospects for the first quarter of 2024 despite some concerns about what Nippon Steel’s $14.1-billion deal for U.S. Steel might mean for domestic supply chains.

Global steel production rose in November compared to a year earlier with output in China roughly flat and significant gains elsewhere, according to the latest figures from the World Steel Association (worldsteel).

I was asked to do an interview for a cable news channel in Ohio about Nippon Steel’s planned acquisition of U.S. Steel for more than $14 billion.

US hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices were unchanged week over week (WoW) following a string of mostly upward moves dating back to late September.

Nippon Steel will acquire U.S. Steel in a deal valued at $14.9 billion, or $55 per share, the two companies announced on Monday morning. The Japanese steelmaker will keep U.S. Steel's iconic logo and its Pittsburgh headquarters, the companies said.

As 2023 draws to a close, I wanted to look back on some of the key events and themes of the year. But I’m going to hold off on that idea because we were – as of Sunday afternoon - still waiting on news about arguably the biggest event of the year, the potential sale of U.S. Steel.

Thursday felt eerily quiet after a frenzy of steel and financial market news on Wednesday.