Tag: Hot-Briquetted Iron

Divergent opinions emerge on August's scrap outlook.

United Airlines raised eyebrows earlier this month when it provided two forecasts for 2025 – one assuming a relatively stable economy and another assuming a recession. The reason? Uncertainty around the impact of President Trump’s policy shocks on the broader economy. And it sometimes feels like we’re seeing a battle between those two narratives (stable vs recession) play out within in the pages of this newsletter.

Cleveland-Cliffs' Lourenco Goncalves said the company will install a new stove at Stelco’s blast furnace in Nanticoke, Ontario.

The basic pig iron (BPI) market remains virtually unchanged despite perceived weakness in other ferrous materials, such as scrap, billets, HRC and iron ore.

ArcelorMittal posted a narrower Q1’24 profit compared to Q1’23 but remained optimistic about steel's long-term demand prospects.

Rio de Janeiro-based metals and mining conglomerate Vale could potentially build a new plant for the production of iron ore briquettes in the US.

The CRUmpi declined by 1.7% month over month (m/m) to 325.2 in February, compared to a 4.3% m/m increase in February 2023.

ArcelorMittal indicated that a sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel could lead to it taking full control of AM/NS Calvert, its joint venture sheet mill in Alabama. "Typically, in such situations, when there is a selling partner, they sell it to the other partner in the joint venture, right. So I could imagine such a situation would develop,” Mittal said.

ArcelorMittal swung to a loss in the fourth quarter largely because of costs associated with a deadly coal mining disaster last year in Kazakhstan. The Luxembourg-based steelmaker sold its Kazakhstan operations in December and no longer owns and operates coal mines as a result of the move, according to comments released along with earnings data on Thursday.

The capacity for EAF steelmaking is growing both in the US and abroad. Ferrous scrap supply has never been more important. A lot of people have viewed the scrap industry as old-fashioned and resistant to change. However, the same forces affecting the steel and other industries are also at play in recycling.

The pig iron trade is an important element to the US steel and foundry industry.

Some of the movements in scrap and pig iron pricing over the past 18-24 months have been quite drastic.

Sweden’s H2 Green Steel has signed an agreement with Brazilian miner Vale to jointly study the feasibility of developing green industrial hubs in Brazil and North America.

A wide-ranging discussion on the SMU Steel Summit 'Domestic Steel Panel: Investing for the Future' saw executives from leading steel companies debate the likelihood of passing on a surcharge to consumers for products with lower CO2 content.

Cleveland-Cliffs is now charging its automotive customers a premium for its lower-carbon steel. The steelmaker has recently introduced a surcharge of $40 per net ton ($44 per metric ton or $2 per cwt) to each ton of steel made with Cliffs’ hot-briquetted iron (HBI). They are calling it the “Cliffs H” surcharge, chairman, president and […]

Cleveland-Cliffs is now charging its automotive customers a premium for its lower-carbon steel.

Decarbonization was the order of the day at the AISTech 2023 President’s Award Breakfast on Tuesday. Other issues highlighted included workforce availability and bringing more women into the steel industry. With over 1,300 attendees present at the breakfast in Huntington Place in Detroit, and hundreds more watching online, the AIST Board of Directors Awards were […]

The prime scrap and metallic shortage in the US will continue over the next few years, according to Cleveland-Cliffs’ top executive.  “Our conviction that this country’s prime scrap and metallic shortage will continue to tighten over the coming years is at the core of our strategy,” Cliffs’ chairman, president, and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said during […]

Voestalpine AG is set to commission the construction of two electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) in Austria. The Linz, Austria-based company said the approval stage has been reached allowing for the investment of around €1.5 billion ($1.62 bilion) to construct one EAF in Linz and another in Donawitz. As part of its “greentec steel” plan, the plant and […]

The steel industry in the US, and across much of the developed world, finds itself between two greens. On the one hand is the constant innovation towards sustainable, decarbonized “green” steel. And, on the other, is a more traditional green, the bottom line: money. The hope is to keep the two aligned, increasing profits while […]

Cleveland-Cliffs has called back workers to its idled Northshore Mining operations in Minnesota, a company spokeswoman confirmed. She declined to say how many workers were being called back or why. “We will provide more details when we decide when and at what capacity this operation will be brought back online,” the spokeswoman said in an […]

BlueScope Steel said earnings at its North Star operations in Delta, Ohio, tumbled on lower steel prices in the six months of its fiscal year 2023. The Australian steelmaker reported underlying ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of $173.4 million in its 1H FY2023 at North Star, down 81% from $925.3 million last year, […]

Cleveland-Cliffs has ruled out spending money to build new electric-arc furnaces (EAFs), the company’s top executive said. The Cleveland-based steelmaker will instead focus on decarbonizing its blast furnaces (BFs) and basic-oxygen furnaces (BOFs), which are better suited than EAFs to supply the automotive industry, company chairman, president, and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said. “Cleveland-Cliffs does not […]

ArcelorMittal expects that its $2.2-billion acquisition of Brazilian steelmaker Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém (CSP) will close in late February. “The transaction closes end of this month,” chief financial officer Genuino Christino said during an earnings call with analysts last week. The Luxembourg-based steelmaker had said that the deal had received final antitrust clearance in commentary […]

The outbreak of war in Ukraine triggered an energy crisis in Europe. Gas and consequently electricity prices soared and remain high. European production of commodities such as ammonia, aluminum, and zinc which require significant energy and/or natural gas were and remain disrupted to differing degrees. Natural gas is supposed to be a ‘transition fuel’ in […]

US Steel Corp. has completed the foundation, along with the first placement of structural steel, at its direct-reduced (DR)-grade pellet production facility in Keewatin, Minn. Completion of the $150-million Keetac project is expected later this year, with first pellets produced in 2024, the company said. US Steel broke ground on the facility in Q3 2022, as […]

By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley, from CRU’s Steel Sheet Products Monitor  Steel sheet price volatility has peaked in the US after record average week-on-week (WoW) price changes during 2022. In our view, prices will trade in a much narrower band over at least the next five years (barring any further black swan events) – […]

H2 Green Steel (H2GS) is partnering with Midrex Technologies for its new direct reduced iron (DRI) facility in northern Sweden.  Using Midrex’s technology, H2GS’s 2.1-million-metric-tons-per-year facility will run on 100% green hydrogen. Paul Wurth, an SMS group company, will also provide technology and equipment for the first-of-its-kind DRI plant. “We started working together almost two […]

North Star BlueScope is “substantially complete” with a $700 million expansion that will provide the Delta, Ohio, EAF sheet mill with additional annual capacity of nearly 950,000 short tons (850,000 metric tonnes). The mill produced the first coil from its expansion in June and has begun the 18-month process of ramping up the facility to […]

US Steel is trying to keep a stiff upper lip despite lower flat-rolled steel selling prices, continued supply chain problems, and an uneven economic outlook. “Let’s face it. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Some people say more uncertainty than ever before,” company president and CEO David Burritt said. “I’m not so sure that’s true. But […]