Metal forming companies expressed less optimism in the February Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) Business Conditions Report. Out of a sampling of 119 metal forming companies in the U.S. and Canada, only 33 percent of participants expect economic activity to improve over the next three months, down from 45 percent in January. Incoming orders are expected […]
During the ArcelorMittal earnings conference call which was conducted this past Friday, Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of AM told the analysts on the call, “At ArcelorMittal, we remain confident, that the steel will remain the material of choice for automotive. We are the leader in providing light weighting products and solutions for our automotive customer and […]
ArcelorMittal narrowed its net loss to $1.1 billion in FY 2014 and cut its debt to $15.8 billion, the lowest level since the company was formed in 2006. Cash flow from operations in 2014 totaled $3.9 billion. Consolidated steel shipments for 2014 were up 3 percent year over year to 85.1 million tonnes. Fourth quarter […]
On Monday we will begin our mid-February flat rolled steel market analysis. The market has seen prices dropping over the past few weeks at a rate not seen for a number of years. Our survey will help us not only understand where price offers/orders are today but when we think the bottom will be reached. […]
Flat rolled steel buyers are resigned to a steel price spot market which takes benchmark hot rolled prices below the $500 per ton ($25.00/cwt) level. One of the large hot rolled service centers this morning told Steel Market Update that they were having a difficult time keeping up with the pace of the falling numbers. […]
General Motors, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler (FCA US) all reported strong fourth quarter earnings driven by sales of trucks, SUVs and crossovers. GM reported net income of $1.1 billion in Q4, with 669,000 vehicles sold. GM executive vice president and CFO Chuck Stevens said in GMs conference call that with “recent fuel prices and strength in […]
The domestic steel mills and their ferrous scrap suppliers traditionally negotiate pricing on scrap to be delivered during the first few days of the new month. This means the mills and their suppliers are deep into negotiations regarding February scrap purchases right now. Last week the word amongst the “scrappies,” as well as their mill […]
January auto sales set monthly records for automotive manufacturers. The Detroit big three made double digit gains for the month as did the top three Japanese manufacturers. Light trucks and SUVs led the stellar sales for the month. Ford’s F-series pickup had the best January sales volume since 2004. A CNBC analyst said, “F-150 has […]
The Institute of Supply Management released their January report on February 2nd. An explanation of this data set is given at the end of this piece. After the October surprise on the upside, the index slid back once again from 55.1 in December to 53.5 in January. The three month moving average has declined for […]
Steel Dynamics reported a record setting year and fourth quarter 2014. Steel shipments for the quarter were up 51 percent to 2.3 million tons from 1.5 million tons in Q3 2013. Steel fabrication had operating income of $22 million following a loss of $122,000 a year ago. For the full-year 2014 steel shipments totaled 7.4 […]
AK Steel claimed its best quarter in three and a half years and its best annual performance since 2008. AK Steel reported shipments of 2,010,200 tons in fourth quarter 2014 compared to 1.42 million tons in Q4 2013. The increase exceeded analyst expectations and was due primarily to strong demand from automotive and the addition […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to be optimistic about their company’s chances of being successful in both the current market conditions as well as three to six months into the future. However, there have been some clouds building as our 3MMA has been trending lower over the past four months. We have […]
December was another strong month for light vehicle sales at 16.9 million units and following the very strong November result of 17.2 million units (annualized). This was the second best result since August. In 2014 as a whole sales were 16.5 million units, up from 15.6 million in 2013 and the best sales result since […]
A lot has already been written about the dramatic decline in oil prices, the persistent high imports of energy tubulars, and related issues. What is missing, in my opinion, is some perspective and context to pull it all together. The purpose of this article is to show why the energy sector is so important to […]
Gulf ports are not experiencing the horrific congestion issues seen in the West. Fleetwood Port Logistics, out of Houston and Savannah, that deals primarily in break bulk steel products, has seen little to no congestion at the primary discharge terminal of North City Docks, Port of Houston. There has been some congestion at the smaller […]
The following article is a continuation of our Steel Buyers Basics series written by Mario Briccetti. Mario is Principal of Briccetti & Associates, a Supply Chain consulting firm, and can be reached at Mario@mbriccetti.com. Briccetti wrote the following article as part of our Steel Buyers Basics series of articles, many of which can be found […]
Worthington Industries, Inc. announced Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to buy Rome Strip Steel Company, Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Rome Strip Steel is based in Rome, N.Y., and has a warehouse facility in Walhalla, S.C., Employing 130 people., Rome manufactures cold rolled strip steel primarily for the automotive industry. The companies capabilities […]
While speaking with a couple of the secondary flat rolled steel distributors this past week, we got into a discussion about the advanced high strength steels (AHSS) and what impact they were having on the secondary market. A number of service centers pointed out that the product was fine for flat parts or those with […]
A paradigm shift seems to be underway in the HRC futures market now that prices have broken through the critical support level of $600. The CRU is now at $584, which is down over 10 percent from around $665 just three months ago. With futures contracts trading at $580 per ton for the first half […]
A fresh challenge to advanced high strength steel has emerged with a new product from Alcoa called Micromill. The new alloy is stronger, lighter and more formable than previous aluminum alloys. “We cracked the magic formula,” said Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld during the Q4 2014 earnings call. “In the past, if you wanted more formability, […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to drop this week as the domestic steel mills struggled with holes in their order books due to growing inventories at the service centers, a sharp drop off in pipe and tube orders associated with the energy markets, and the continued flow of imported steel (which is part of the […]
.One of the subjects of conversation I had with a number of buyers is what do the domestic steel mills need to do to break the foreign import cycle? There are some who believe that the steel mills will be best served by letting the prices drift down to the point where the spread between […]
Low oil prices and the proliferation of pipe and tube imports at below market prices are causing manufacturers to idle mills and lay off workers. The latest round of layoffs comes from Tenaris which announced it will lay off 500 employees in Conroe, Texas and in Blytheville, Arkansas. “The energy industry’s present circumstances have driven […]
US automotive sales were positive across the board in December. Total sales for 2014 showed a vigorous auto industry aided by low gas prices, a recovering economy and higher employment. Total sales were reported to be 16,522,000 light vehicles. In the Big Three Detroit manufacturers, General Motors was up 19.3 percent in December and Fiat […]
After Steel Market Update (SMU) produced our 11 month analysis of flat rolled steel imports into the United States, we received a number of comments about reality versus the perception behind the numbers. Calendar year 2014 should go down in history as the second largest number of foreign steel tonnage shipped to the U.S. by […]
November was a strong month for light vehicle sales rising to 17.2 million units, (annualized) from 16.5 million in October. This was the best result since August. So far in 2014 sales are averaging 16.45 million units, the best rate since 2006. Light trucks increased faster than automobiles in November presumably boosted by low gas […]
Worthington Industries reported an increase in sales for the second quarter of its 2015 fiscal year ending November 30, 2014. Sales of $871 million, however, could not offset weakness in the company’s Engineered Cabs and Oil & Gas sectors. Net earnings fell to $29.5 million from $44.2 million in the previous quarter but surpassed Q2 […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 106.66 for November an increase of 1.26 percent from October. The three month moving average (3MMA) was 105.75 which was the highest value ever and the sixth straight month where the growth of the 3MMA exceeded […]
It has now been five weeks (October 28th) since AK Steel became the first domestic steel mill to announce a price increase on flat rolled steel. The relatively modest $20 per ton move was, in many steel buyers’ opinions, meant to stem the decline in steel prices. At that point in time benchmark hot rolled […]
Big River Steel has asked a federal court to block the Clean Air Act challenge mounted by Nucor last August. In a court filing on Friday, Big River Steel said the challenge is a “collateral attack” by Nucor. Big River Steel received the necessary permits from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (AEDQ) to build […]