Johnny Sjöström, head of Special Steels for SSAB, will be the featured speaker for the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, March 9, at 11 am ET. Sjöström will speak about SSAB’s Special Steels segment and its place in the broader global steel industry. He will also talk about Russian forces invading Ukraine and the […]
Nucor’s sheet mill group – which now includes California Steel Industries (CSI) – plans to increase sheet base prices by at least $100 per ton ($5 per hundredweight). The move is effective immediately and applies to all new orders, the Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said in a letter to customers dated Monday, March 7. The latest […]
ArcelorMittal has decided to idle iron- and steelmaking operations at its mill in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, because of the war. The decision was made last week “to ensure the safety and security of our people and assets,” the Luxembourg based multinational steelmaker said in a statement. ArcelorMittal has begun the process of idling all blast […]
The global chip shortage continues to dog North American auto assembly plants more than a year after the issue first resulted in widespread production outages. Among the automakers impacted this week are Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, the European parent company of Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler. Chrysler’s Belvidere, Ill., assembly plant – which makes […]
PAO Sevestal is no longer selling steel to the European Union. The Russian steelmaker did not acknowledge – as has been widely reported – that the move was in response to EU sanctions. “Severstal states that it is experiencing some difficulties in relations with its EU clients, and as a result is redirecting volumes to […]
Johnny Sjöström, head of Special Steels for SSAB, will be the featured speaker for the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, March 9, at 11 am ET. Sjöström will speak about SSAB’s Special Steels segment and its place in the broader global steel industry. Sjöström was appointed head of Special Steels in 2018. He joined […]
The fog of war. That’s what we’re all dealing with now. Even in steel as realization grows that the war in Ukraine will have consequences here in North America too. The exact contours are still uncertain. We know that pig iron prices are up sharply, and that concerns about shortages are mounting – not just […]
Evraz North America has seen no impact on its U.S. and Canadian operations or on its finances from sanctions rolled out following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nor does the Chicago-based steelmaker expect any disruption as a result of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq halting trading of U.S.-listed Russian companies, an Ervaz NA […]
Evraz does not expect to be hit by sanctions aimed at Russian banks and political elites after the country’s invasion of Ukraine, company executives said. But the situation is changing quickly, and it’s too soon to draw any firm conclusions, they said. “We believe it (sanctions) will not have a significant effect on the company,” […]
Johnny Sjöström, head of Special Steels for SSAB, will be the featured speaker for the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, March 9, at 11 am ET. Sjöström will speak about SSAB’s Special Steels segment and its place in the broader global steel industry. Sjöström was appointed head of Special Steels in 2018. He joined […]
Nucor has joined Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. in increasing base prices for steel sheet by at least $50 per ton ($2.50 per cwt). The move is effective with all new orders, the Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said in a letter to customers on Friday, Feb. 25. “We reserve the right to review and re-quote any offers that are […]
You don’t need SMU pontificating about how the Russia-Ukraine conflict marks the end of the post-WWII order. Suffice it to say the world we woke up to today is vastly different from the one we reported on in our last edition. We’re also getting used to thinking about things we haven’t had to think about […]
Some North American flat-rolled steelmakers were silent when asked what the impact of the conflict between the U.S. and Russia might be on their operations. Others said their supply lines weren’t in the crossfire. One reason for the silence in some corners: Many rely heavily either on Russian slab or Russian or Ukrainian pig iron […]
Stelco Holdings Inc. posted record annual results in 2021 but warned – unlike other North American steelmakers – that the good times would not roll into this year. “We certainly benefited from exceptional price levels for much of the year,” Stelco Executive Chairman and CEO Alan Kestenbaum said. “In 2022, however, we expect to see […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. will indefinitely idle the No. 4 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor steelmaking campus in northwest Indiana. The Cleveland-based steelmaker also announced that it was raising prices for April orders of carbon hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated flat-rolled steel by at least $50 per ton ($2.50 per cwt). Cliffs will transfer hot metal production […]
Prices for steel sheet have fallen across the board since September of last year. But the pace of declines for hot-rolled coil has been much faster than for galvanized products. The result: Spreads between HRC prices and galv base prices – which have been at record levels since late last year – continue to widen. […]
Prices for steel sheet have fallen across the board since September of last year. But the pace of declines for hot-rolled coil has been much faster than for galvanized products. The result: Spreads between HRC prices and galv base prices – which have been at record levels since late last year – continue to widen. […]
The Tampa Steel Conference has wrapped up, and I thank all of you who attended and who took the time to catch up with me on stage or along the sidelines. Below are five themes that I took away from the event. If I were to sum it up in a sentence, it’s this: Steel […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. might shut a blast furnace this year, the company’s top executive said. “When we make a move, we make a move. … You might see a blast furnace going down for good still in 2022,” Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said during a fireside chat at the Tampa Steel Conference this […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. could join other steel producers in adding electric-arc furnace (EAF) capacity, the company’s top executive said. The Cleveland-based steelmaker is considering that because the cost of relining a blast furnace – and investing in the supply chains needed to feed it – are roughly the same as those for of building a new EAF. […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. posted a near-record profit in the fourth quarter and predicted that the good times would continue to roll into 2022 thanks to fixed-price contracts resetting at higher numbers. That prediction comes largely because automakers, which typically buy steel on contract terms, were forced to limit production in 2021 because of the global chip […]
Algoma Steel Group swung to a profit in its fiscal 2022 third quarter thanks to steel prices rising faster than raw material and energy costs. The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based sheet and plate producer also said that construction was underway for its transition to electric-arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. All told, the company recorded net income […]
On the price front, we’re below $1,200 per ton ($60 per cwt) for hot-rolled coil the first time in almost exactly a year, which had me going back and checking some of the headlines we had a year ago. A recurring theme is that just about everything that happened last year is happening in reverse […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is expected to take an approximately 80-90 day planned outage on the No. 5 blast furnace at its Cleveland Works starting in mid to late March, according to market participants. The outage is expected to last until roughly mid-June. It is not expected to impact customers because the Cleveland-based steelmaker can stock slabs […]
It’s not too late to register for tomorrow’s SMU Comminuty Chat webinar, starting at 11 a.m. ET (10 a.m. CT). Majestic Steel USA CEO Todd Leebow will be our featured speaker, and we will discuss the big issues facing service centers in the face of unprecedented price volatility and technical change. Topics will include: How […]
It’s not too late to register for tomorrow’s SMU Community Chat webinar, starting at 11 a.m. ET. Our featured speaker will be Todd Leebow, CEO of Majestic Steel USA. We’ll discuss the big issues facing service centers in the face of unprecedented price volatility and technical change. Topics will include: How are service centers managing inventory at […]
The U.S. has announced that a deal has been reached with Japan to ease Section 232 national security tariffs on steel imports from the key U.S. ally. The U.S. Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced the deal at around 5 pm Eastern Time on Monday, Feb. 7, as SMU had […]
The United States and Japan are expected to announce this afternoon a new deal on Section 232 regarding Japanese steel exports to the U.S., according to sources familiar with the matter. The new agreement will be a tariff rate quota, or TRQ, broadly similar to one negotiated between the U.S. and the EU last year. […]
Plate prices have been remarkably steady in the face of sheet price declines of hundreds of dollars per ton. That trend probably can’t hold for much longer, and plate prices are overdue for a correction, according to market contacts and SMU data. For starters, look at the chart below: HRC prices have fallen from $1,600 […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) has melted, cast and rolled the first coil at its new steel mill in Sinton, Texas. Employees of the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker celebrated the occasion on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. The first coil both melted and rolled at Sinton was produced on Wednesday. SDI had previously been running […]