On Thursday (October 27, 2016) Cliffs Natural Resources conducted their 3rd Quarter 2016 earnings conference call with analysts. During the call Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves made statements regarding steel service centers which he reported as importing “illegal steel,” thus hurting the domestic steel industry. He also pointed out that service center inventories were “dangerously low” […]
The following “letter to the editor” was prompted by comments made by Lourenco Goncalves CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources during his earnings conference call with analysts and reported on by Steel Market Update (and others). The comments below were made by an executive at a domestic steel service center in response to Mr. Goncalves: I’m […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) is adjusting our Price Momentum Indicator to “Higher” from Neutral. It is our opinion that flat rolled steel prices in the United States and Canada will move higher over the next 30 to 60 days. There are a number of reasons why we have chosen to make this move now, here […]
The Brazilian Steel Association has requested that the World Trade Organization initiate a “bilateral consultation” with the United States regarding the countervailing duties applied against imports of Brazilian hot and cold-rolled steel. The Association claims that the U.S. Department of Commerce did not take into consideration in their determination of “actionable subsidies” the explanations by […]
SSAB Americas, recorded a third quarter operating loss of SEK 73 million ($8.1 million) compared to a profit of SEK 162 million ($18 million) in Q2 2016. The loss was due mainly to the maintenance outage at Montpelier in the third quarter, higher variable costs, lower volumes and lower capacity utilization which was somewhat offset […]
Cliffs Natural Resources reported iron ore pellet sales volume in third quarter was 5.3 million long tons compared to 5.6 million long tons in 2015. Production was also down at 3.86 million long tons compared to 4 million long tons the year before. The decrease was attributed to customer inventory mix that was partly offset […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) announced its affirmative final determinations in the antidumping investigations of imports of circular welded carbon-quality steel pipe from Pakistan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam, and the countervailing investigation of imports of the same merchandise from Pakistan. The investigations cover welded carbon-quality steel pipe and tube, […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of September 2016, providing updated data on iron ore imports, scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in September were 92,990,000 metric tons, an increase of 6.0 percent from the previous month and an increase of 8.0 percent from […]
One of our key Asian steel and commodity trading sources has provided SMU with details about the Chinese steel markets as well as what is happening in Asia,including comments about the circumvention suit which involves Vietnam: Export offers from China have basically risen by USD20/mt in the past two weeks, and it has become a […]
Steel Dynamics reported higher flat rolled prices resulted in an 11 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter. Net earnings were $284 million on net sales of $2.1 billion. Adjusted net income, including a $5 million litigation settlement charge, was $157 million for the quarter. SDI steel production was at 85 percent capacity in […]
Nucor Corporation reported net earnings of $270 million for third quarter, up from 233.8 million in Q2 and 227.1 in Q3 2015. Consolidated net sales in third quarter increased 1 percent to $4.29 billion from the previous quarter and 2 percent from a year ago. Average sales price per ton increased 11 percent QoQ. Tons […]
Turkish steel producers have filed new antidumping and countervailing duty petitions on hot-rolled coil imports from China, Russia and Ukraine. An AD investigation was previously initiated in January 2015 on HRC imports from China, Japan, France, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Slovakia in January 2015 but was terminated by the Turkish Economy Ministry after petitioners withdrew […]
Please see the end of this report for an explanation of data sources. The Broad Index value of the US $ is reported several days in arrears by the Federal Reserve, the latest value we have was dated October 7th, Figure 1. The dollar has lacked direction since early May as traders have correctly anticipated […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated foreign steel import license data earlier today. SMU analyzes the license data through the 18th of October, produces a daily import license request rate and then we make an assumption that if the daily rate continues by the end of the month we will have “X” number of tons […]
US Steel Canada court monitor Alex Morrison reported sales were good in August, resulting in revenue of CAD $144.6 million. EBITDA increased by $30.7 million from July. Shipments were up 19.7 percent year-over-year to 192,734 tons. The company has been successful in replacing sales to automotive customers that were lost when US Steel cut ties […]
The Vietnam steel industry is between the proverbial rock and hard place. U.S. steel manufacturers claim that Vietnamese exporters are party to China’s circumvention of antidumping and countervailing duties on cold rolled steel and are calling for AD duties to match those on China products. Vietnam’s influx of Chinese steel is also a concern for […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to move lower as benchmark hot rolled broke through $500 per ton and is now averaging $490 per ton. We were relatively conservative in our range this week as we did capture at least one order placed for moderate tonnage at $440 per ton and we are hearing that the […]
We believe that misinformation about regional import volumes is often used to influence purchase decisions. Our intent with this analysis of tonnage by district of entry is to describe in detail what is going on in a company’s immediate neighborhood and thus provide a negotiating advantage for our premium subscribers. We are now publishing monthly […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2003 through August 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
In this evening’s edition we have included a number of articles that would normally go to just our Premium level members. We thought that our Executive level members would like to get an idea of some of the articles and data they are missing. Included in that list is the Power Point presentation of our […]
The European Union, on Friday, placed provisional tariffs on imports of hot-rolled flat steel and heavy plate steel from China. Steel association Eurofer lodged the antidumping complaint with the European Commission in January on behalf of European steel producers representing 90 percent of the region’s hot-rolled flat rolled steel production. Eurofer alleged in its complaint […]
China’s Commerce Ministry criticized the European Union for antidumping duties imposed Friday on imports of hot rolled steel and plate. The Ministry called the investigation methods unfair. A spokesperson for the Ministry said Chinese steel imports cannot be affecting EUs steel prices because they only account for 5 percent of the European market. “Reckless trade […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of August 2016 was 9,115,482 net tons and the percentage of imports was 26.2 percent of the market. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished […]
Licensed data for September was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on October 4th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. All volumes in this analysis are reported in short tons. Total rolled […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) reported final census data regarding foreign steel imports for the month of August and revised new license data regarding the month of September. The DOC reported August imports of 3,055,600 net tons and September license data has the month below 3.0 million tons to approximately 2.8 million tons. The […]
The Manufacturing ISM Report on Business showed manufacturing expanding in September after contracting in August. The Institute for Supply Management reports the September PMI was 51.5 percent, up 2.1 percent from the previous month. New orders, production and employment gained 6, 3.2 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively. The index for inventories of raw materials rose […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. This will explain the difference between our view of the present situation which is subjective and our analysis of trends which is based on the latest facts available. At the end of […]
The Fed once again elected not raise rates in their September 21st announcement. On the 22nd Ian Bezek had this to say: “For those who wanted decisive action, the Fed’s latest move failed to please, however, there were three dissenters against the decision – a large number for the Fed – and the vast majority […]
Steel Market Update spoke with two sources regarding the most recent complaint filed by the domestic mills against Vietnam and China for circumvention of duties (China) on cold rolled and CORE (corrosion resistant steels such as galvanized and Galvalume) products. One of the tenants behind the accusations made by the domestic steel mills is the […]