John Packard is traveling…. As always, the holiday break put the brakes on buying, making it a challenge to gauge steel prices in the first week of 2020. But it appears the upward price momentum has continued into the New Year. Steel Market Update’s survey of the market over the past two days shows flat […]
Happy Holidays! I expect this week to be a tad on the slow side as buyers and sellers of steel celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas. One year ago, benchmark hot rolled prices were averaging $745 per ton ($37.25/cwt), down from the cycle peak achieved the week of July 23, 2018, at $915 per ton ($45.75/cwt). Since […]
By CRU Prices Analyst George Pearson, from the CRU Steel Sheet Products Monitor Sheet prices in the U.S. were mixed this week. HR coil at $555 was steady w/w, falling by $2 /s.ton, while CR and HDG coil products gained $26-30 /s.ton w/w after steadying last week. For HR coil, overall volume has picked back […]
Affirming that steel imports from Vietnam have been circumventing U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties, the Department of Commerce on Monday upheld its preliminary AD/CVD rates on imports of galvanized and cold rolled sheet from Vietnam manufactured with hot- or cold-rolled substrate from Korea and Taiwan. Steel products produced in Korea and Taiwan, shipped to Vietnam […]
New rounds of flat rolled price increases began on Friday with ArcelorMittal USA and NLMK USA taking the lead at $40 per ton. My expectation is the other mills will follow on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Watch lead times – with some of the mills they are beginning to stretch. Steel Dynamics has […]
California Steel Industries informed customers Wednesday that, “due to changing market conditions,” it has increased transaction prices for its products by $70 per ton. The change applies immediately to new orders of hot rolled, P&O, cold rolled and galvanized products. “All pricing is subject to slab availability and mill capacity,” the company said in its […]
Changes may be coming for two joint ventures held by Brazilian mining giant Vale, including California Steel Industries. Vale is looking to trim costs as it continues to make reparations stemming from the Brumadinho tailings dam collapse that took 270 lives and caused major environmental damage to the region. At Vale Day on Dec. 2 […]
I have just returned from three days in New Orleans where I attended the HARDI annual conference. I spoke to the steel council on Sunday, and I referenced some of my comments in Sunday evening’s issue of Steel Market Update. I stayed until this morning because I wanted to hear Alan Beaulieu speak to see […]
President Trump stunned the market with an early-morning tweet Monday calling for new Section 232 tariffs on steel imports from Brazil and Argentina, which he accused of currency manipulation. No word yet on whether the White House will make the tariffs official, or even if they would be legal. But the prospect of higher priced […]
This morning President Trump tweeted that due to the decline in the Brazilian and Argentinian currencies, he intends to place 25 percent tariffs on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum from both countries. His tweet has created a great deal of confusion in the U.S. steel markets. Steel Market Update is attempting to […]
This morning President Trump tweeted that due to currency manipulation by Brazil and Argentina, he intends to place 25 percent tariffs on steel from both countries, and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. His tweet has created a great deal of confusion in the U.S. steel markets. Steel Market Update is attempting to help calm […]
Steel Market Update will not publish on Thursday, Nov. 28, or Sunday, Dec. 1, due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. Our offices will be closed on Friday, Nov. 29, and will reopen on Monday, Dec. 2. Our early December flat rolled and plate steel market trends survey will begin on Monday, Dec. 2. We will also […]
Virgin steel is made with iron ore, coke and limestone. It was done that way, and only that way, for many decades. Then along came the “mini” mills. So-called minimills recycle ferrous scrap, mixing it with pig iron or other iron units and melting it down in large electric arc furnaces to produce new steel. […]
The domestic steel mills were busy on Friday with SSAB USA announcing a $40 per ton price increase on steel plate, and then U.S. Steel coming out with a $30 per ton price increase on flat rolled. The SSAB increase was the second on plate this month. Flat rolled has seen three price increase announcements […]
The domestic steel mills were busy on Friday with SSAB USA announcing a $40 per ton price increase on steel plate, and then U.S. Steel coming out with a $30 per ton price increase on flat rolled. The SSAB increase was the second on plate this month. Flat rolled has seen three price increase announcements […]
Today I was on a conference call with steel buyers associated with HARDI, the trade organization whose members sell galvanized steel and other products to mechanical contractors. We have an article about the call in this evening’s issue, but there was one fact that was brought up by multiple executives: the price increases “have not […]
Do you think the country is going to be a little distracted this week with all the witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment hearings? A reminder of the results of one of our real-time polls where 53 percent of the 493 individuals responding to a question about who they were going to vote for in the […]
There is one constant to our SMU Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop – just about everyone who takes the workshop enjoys it and sees the value in the subject matter being taught. This has resulted in many of our past attendees working their way up within their company’s management structure. […]
There is one constant to our SMU Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop – just about everyone who takes the workshop enjoys it and sees the value in the subject matter being taught. This has resulted in many of our past attendees working their way up within their company’s management structure. […]
The domestic steel mills announced new $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) price increases on flat rolled this past week. This is the second price increase on flat rolled over the past two months. The domestic mills, led by ArcelorMittal USA, announced $40 per ton spot base price increases on Oct. 24-25 and were able to collect […]
Next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop: Jan. 8-9, 2020, in Ontario, Calif. Next Mill Tour: California Steel Industries, Fontana, Calif. This will be our 30th Steel 101 Workshop since inception. The Steel Market Update Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop has trained close to 1,000 people […]
Next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop: Jan. 8-9, 2020, in Ontario, Calif. Next Mill Tour: California Steel Industries, Fontana, Calif. This will be our 30th Steel 101 Workshop since inception. The Steel Market Update Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop has trained close to 1,000 people […]
John Packard is traveling… Eddie Lehner, Ryerson president and CEO, is optimistic that carbon steel prices will bottom in the fourth quarter. “Given where prices are now, the recent price increases have a better chance of sticking than the ones that were announced in Q2 and Q3,” he commented during the company’s third-quarter conference call […]
London, Brexit, new election, split country. As I was standing in line to enter the House of Lords, the gentleman to my left began discussing how Brexit has severed parties and even families. No longer can British families talk about their government openly. I heard the theme on many occasions as I traveled about London […]
John Packard is traveling… While it’s too early to tell how the market will fully react to last week’s price increase announcements by the flat rolled mills, change is clearly afoot, based on the findings from SMU’s canvass of the market over the past two days. How high will prices go, and for how long? […]
John Packard is traveling… To almost no one’s surprise, the mills raised flat rolled prices by $40 a ton on Thursday and Friday in the hope of reversing the slide that has taken hot rolled as low as $470 a ton. Seven out of 10 steel buyers responding to SMU’s questionnaire last week said they […]
There was much discussion at the NASA conference and in the wake of the conference regarding scrap pricing and where prices are headed for the month of November. The discussion on scrap has been a moving target over the past week or two. We checked with some of our sources earlier this month and we […]
Another hectic week for me as I travel to Chicago on Monday and Tuesday. I will be in the office on Wednesday, Thursday and part of the day on Friday before flying to London where I will be visiting CRU offices on Oct. 28, participating in the CRU Breakfast at the British Museum on the […]
I thought John Ferriola’s comments at the World Steel Association would be of interest to our readers. Joe Innace of Platts interviewed Nucor’s Ferriola and reported him saying, “The rest of this year will be pretty flat. Going into next year, it’s really a crapshoot.” He told Platts Nucor’s downstream businesses have seen prices drop, […]
John Packard is traveling… Here’s what readers of Steel Market Update have learned this week. Steel prices continue to slide. By Steel Market Update’s calculation, the benchmark price for hot rolled steel now averages $515 per ton. That’s the lowest in 2019. Given the widespread reports of disappointing demand, worsened by the strike at GM […]