Tag: blast furnace

Cleveland-Cliffs expects its acquisition of Canada’s Stelco to close later this year, which will help the the Cleveland-based steelmaker as a bottom to steel tags nears.

The United Kingdom and other countries are using the “green” label to subsidize bailouts of obsolete, inefficient, and excess capacity that should exit the market. US steelmakers have invested billions of dollars in technologies that curb greenhouse gas output. These investments have been market-based and led by EAF producers such as Nucor, Steel Dynamics, and CMC.

Cleveland-Cliffs has been pursuing M&A opportunities for some time now and thinks it has found a solid partner with aligned interests in Stelco. The companies announced on Monday that Cliffs would acquire the integrated Canadian steelmaker. That same day, Cliffs held a conference call with analysts to discuss the acquisition. Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs’ chairman, president, […]

North America has one of the most robust steel scrap markets in the world. The continent has a long history of steel production, significant imports of steel and steel-containing products, and mature steel consumption. Due to this, the reservoir of scrap available to be recycled each year in the US and other North American markets is substantial and growing.

US sheet prices continue to fall, with SMU’s average hot-rolled (HR) coil price now at $670 per short ton (st). Prices for cold-rolled and coated products are now in the mid/high $900s/st. As I noted in my last Final thoughts, the consensus among our readers is that prices will bottom out in July. And that makes intuitive sense. Lead times in mid/late July should be stretching into the typically busier fall months. The question then is where prices bottom.

Algoma executives reiterated that operations are proceeding as normal following an unplanned BF outage earlier this year.

ArcelorMittal Mexico said it's on the brink of severing labor relations with striking members of the local mining union. This serious move comes as an illegal strike and the resulting mill outage persist into their second month, posing a significant threat to the continuation of the mill’s operations.

Algoma Steel’s quarterly and full-year results took a hit from an unplanned blast furnace outage earlier this year. However, with a modernized plate mill and two new EAFs slated to come online by the end of this year, the Canadian flat-rolled steel producer is looking to a greener future.

ArcelorMittal Mexico is suffering a significant production loss as the labor strike at its mill in Lazaro Cardenas is now in its fourth week.

U.S. Steel has guided to lower second-quarter earnings both sequentially and on-year in "dynamic" spot price market.

The conventional wisdom is that sheet prices will trend down for the next few weeks (maybe the next two months) before rising again in August – around when lead times stretch into the busier fall months. We see that reflected in our survey results and in market chatter. And there are plenty of data points to choose from if you want to support of that position.

Canacero has weighed in on the workers' protest at ArcelorMittal Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas mill, urging a quick resolution to the dispute.

Canadian flat rolled producer Algoma Steel has appointed Erin Oliver to the newly created role of vice president – health and safety.

When it comes to steel decarbonization, we do not need to compromise our climate ambition to make the types of demanding steel products needed for our 21st-century economy. Nevertheless, many of the world’s highest-emitting steel producers and their allies would have you believe that one cannot be done without the other. They are wrong. They […]

Steel production at ArcelorMittal Mexico has been interrupted due to an “illegal protest” and blockade outside the company’s mill in Lazaro Cardenas, Mich. Some Sindicato Minero union members, dissatisfied with the profit-sharing payments they received, have been obstructing access to the mill since Friday, May 24. As a result, ArcelorMittal had to stop blast furnace […]

A strike outside the ArcelorMittal Mexico plant in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacán, is threatening to impact blast furnace operations at the mill.

After achieving its 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets well ahead of schedule, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has set new reduction goals.

U.S. Steel has celebrated the launch and “operational readiness” of its direct reduced (DR)-grade pellet production facility in Minnesota.

SMU had the pleasure of attending the American Iron and Steel Institute's (AISI's) annual general meeting in Washington this week. It was a slow week in our nation's capital, so we were able to take a leisurely stroll around the National Mall and take in the sights. Just kidding. In fact, the meeting coincided with significant trade actions announced by the Biden administration. It included, among other things, additional tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) appropriated more than $4 billion to the General Services Administration (GSA) and Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) for “Buy Clean” programs. The statute makes clear that GSA and FHWA purchases under these programs are limited to those with “substantially lower” emissions. There is no ambiguity in that requirement. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defined “substantially lower” to mean products with the lowest 20% of embodied emissions when compared to similar materials.

The election campaign is white-hot right now, and the Biden administration is touting its protectionist message. Just this past week, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) touted this message. In a release entitled “What They are Saying,” USTR quoted many of the usual protectionist groups praising government action against Chinese steel exports and shipbuilding. Consuming industries in the United States, which employ many times the American workers as the industries seeking trade protection, were not mentioned.

U.S. Steel posted slightly lower Q1’24 earnings as stronger earnings from its sheet mills were partially offset by a weaker performance from it tubular division. All told, the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker reported Q1’24 earnings of $171 million. That's down 14.1% from $199 million in Q1’23 on sales that fell 6.9% to $4.16 billion in the same comparison.

SunCoke's earnings soared in the first quarter, with the company citing strong performances in its cokemaking and logistics segments.

Steelmaking currently accounts for approximately 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The only way to achieve net zero goals is to significantly reduce steel emissions worldwide. And there is no way to do that without recycling.

If successful in its overtures to Anglo American, BHP will create the world’s largest diversified miner by a country mile. The rationale for this merger is scale and in mining, size matters. 

Lower demand and prices for steel plate impacted SSAB Americas’ results in the first quarter, Swedish parent company SSAB said in its Q1'24 interim report.

The steel market appears to be finding a new, higher normal with the shocks of the pandemic and the Ukraine in the rearview mirror. The good news: a more profitable and consolidated post-Covid US steel industry has been able to invest in operations. That includes efforts to decarbonize. The bad news: That “new normal” could be tested. Because it’s not just domestic sheet prices that have been volatile. Geopolitics are too.

U.S. Steel’s No. 8 blast furnace (BF8) at its Gary Works in northwest Indiana is undergoing a 45-day maintenance outage that started on April 4.

AHMSA’s new investors, Argentem Creek Partners, have plans for a potential staggered restart of operations at the Mexican steelmaker.

Directors of Swedish steelmaker SSAB have decided to replace blast furnace-based steelmaking at Lulea with a ‘green steel’ mini-mill process.