A quick survey of ports shows good warehouse availability for incoming steel products. Los Angeles and Gulf ports saw a significant decline in steel imports in 2015. At the Port of Houston steel import tonnage dropped 28 percent from 6.5 million tons in 2014 to 4.6 million tons in 2015. Tubular product imports are expected […]
AK Steel will get help to restart the Ashland Works furnace from Kentucky legislators. The state Senate passed a house bill on Tuesday that would extend economic incentives from a 2014 measure to help AK Steel refurbish and restart the idled blast furnace at Ashland. The incentives were due to expire in July. AK Steel […]
When looking at the import license data it is important to put the data into some sort of context. At this time, SMU expects March 2016 foreign steel imports to total 2.4-2.6 million tons. If correct, March foreign steel imports would be higher than the month of February Preliminary Census numbers by approximately 300,000 tons. […]
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) issued a final determination today (March 29) that finds Canadian producers have been injured due to the dumped and subsidized imports of certain carbon and alloy steel line pipe from China. The investigation was initiated by the CBSA on August 28, 2015 following complaints filed by EVRAZ North America […]
Flat rolled steel pricing momentum is clearly on the side of the domestic steel mills. You have a number of the integrated mills essentially out of the spot markets and lead times are extended. Even hot rolled lead times are moving out despite weakness in the energy markets. SMU Price Momentum Indicator continues to point […]
The American Institute for International Steel reports monthly on steel import levels. We thought our readers might enjoy looking at the data from the AIIS point of view. Here is the press release for imports in February: Falls Church, VA. March 24, 2016. Steel imports fell 16.5 percent in February, as the United States sharply […]
AK Steel followed the rest of the steel mills as they announced a $30 per ton price increase just 17 days after announcing their last flat rolled increase. This is the third price increase out of AK Steel so far this year. With the latest round of increases, AK Steel minimum base price levels are: […]
There have been four price announcements on flat rolled steel beginning in early December 2015. The first increase was for $40 per ton followed by a succession of $30 per ton announcements. The total of the four announcements is $130 per ton or, $6.50/cwt. Looking at the galvanized markets, when the first price increase was […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released new foreign steel import license request for the month of March 2016. Based on data through the 22nd of the month imports are trending higher than the past two months. At this point, SMU believes imports for March will settle somewhere around 2.6 to 2.8 million net tons. If […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our second flat rolled steel market trends analysis for the month of March. We commit four days to canvass buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel. Then we put the vast majority (but not all) of the results into a Power Point presentation which we share with our Premium […]
US Steel says it will idle tubular operations in Alabama, Texas and Ohio, laying off nearly 800 workers. The steelmaker will temporarily idle Lone Star Tubular Operations in Texas and Fairfield Tubular Operations in Alabama in response to market conditions in the energy industry. “As we adjust operations throughout our tubular organization, we are right-sizing […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated foreign steel import license data earlier this week. The trend is for March steel imports to come in around 2.4-2.7 million net tons or in line with what we saw during the months of January and February 2016. Since we are still early in the month, we are less […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to move higher over the past week. We are seeing even the weakest product, hot rolled, gaining traction as lead times move out due to the shutdown of US Steel and AK Steel mills (Granite City and Ashland). SMU was advised by both steel mills and steel buyers that orders […]
The US Department of announced this evening that evidence of dumping (antidumping or AD) existed on imports of hot rolled steel from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Dumping duties ranged from a low of 3.97 percent out of Hyundai Steel Company in Korea to a high of 49.05 percent […]
The following analysis was done by Peter Wright who writes a number of analytical articles for Steel Market Update. The energy markets are key markets for steel so it is important for our readers to understand oil and gas prices as well as the tubular products associated with drilling and transportation of oil and gas. […]
The following article was originally produced by the Wall Street Journal on March 14, 2016. The U.S.’s biggest iron ore miner Monday said it would restart a key mine in Minnesota, a positive sign for the battered U.S. steel industry following a small uptick in prices and new import tariffs on foreign steel. Cleveland-based Cliffs […]
Steelworkers at ArcelorMittal in Trinidad and Tobago were fired one day after winning a wage dispute in the Industrial Court. ArcelorMittal said it is closing the Point Lisas plant and workers would receive one-month’s salary and payment for any unused vacation time. In November 2015, 480 workers were laid off for six weeks and then […]
Licensed data for February was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on March 8th. At SMU we perform a detailed analysis of this data, an explanation of our methodology is given at the end of this write up. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of February […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2007 through January 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 […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, David Feldstein 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 […]
Recently, Steel Market Update produced an article regarding a discussion between Dan DiMicco, former CEO of Nucor and another one of our LinkedIn members who, in a past life, was responsible for buying foreign slabs for a domestic steel mill. Here is a small clip of that conversation: LinkedIn member: Of course I don’t imagine […]
Recently, Steel Market Update produced an article regarding a discussion between Dan DiMicco, former CEO of Nucor and another one of our LinkedIn members who, in a past life, was responsible for buying foreign slabs for a domestic steel mill. Here is a small clip of that conversation: LinkedIn member: Of course I don’t imagine […]
Ryerson CEO Eddie Lehner called 2015 “one of the harshest and most difficult metal environments we have seen in terms of magnitude and duration.” Ryerson Holding, a service center company, announced fourth quarter and full year results on Thursday. The company posted a net loss of $20.5 million for the quarter. Revenue was down 23 […]
The US Department of Commerce released final census data for January foreign steel imports earlier today. January imports came in at 2,648,218 net tons, about 300,000 more tons than what we saw for the month of December 2015. Even so, January 2016 imports were well below the 4,393,498 tons received during January 2015. February 2016 […]
The following is a reprint of an article by Dr. Mark J. Perry in response to the Wall Street Journal article about the duties imposed on imports of cold-rolled steel from China that SMU publisher John Packard was quoted in. Dr. Perry is a Scholar at The American Enterprise Institute and Professor of Finance and […]
US Steel’s Lorain Tubular steel operations will be idled beginning March 27. The plant is expected to remain down for an unspecified time period until order books improve. US Steel spokesperson Sarah Casella said, “We continue to adjust operations at Lorain to meet customer demand.” The sprawling steel complex in Lorain workers includes both US […]
More than 3,000 workers at ArcelorMittal steel mill Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan, Mexico went on what has been classified as an illegal strike on March 4 to protest job cuts and idled operations. Workers marched in a protest rally and placed red and black flags at the doors of the steel company to announce the […]
Steel Market Update posted one of our articles from Thursday evening’s issue of our newsletter (Steel Market Update Publisher Quoted Around the World) and in the process comments were made that started a debate on a subject SMU has addressed in the past: the purchase of foreign steel slabs by domestic steel mills. After the […]
Earlier this week Steel Market Update (SMU) began canvassing the flat rolled steel markets in order to better appreciate how buyers and sellers of steel are viewing their company’s ability to be successful in the market today (Current) as well as out three to six months (Future). Their responses result in the publication of the […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, David Feldstein 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 […]