Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of November 2015, providing updated data on iron ore imports, scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in November were 82,130,000 metric tons, an increase of 8.8 percent from the previous month and an increase of 21.9 percent from […]
Mexico will launch an antidumping probe on imports of Chinese cold-rolled flat coated steel. The investigation was prompted by a complaint by steelmakers Ternium Mexico and Tenigal which claimed the surge of imports between 2012 and April 2015 harmed domestic production. In October, Mexico instituted a 15 percent tariff on steel products from counties with […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released their Preliminary Determination for Countervailing Duty (CVD) on Cold Rolled products as well as Critical Circumstances on Cold Rolled. The headline is China was found to be receiving subsidies at a rate of 227.29 percent. They also found critical circumstances for the following companies: Angang Group Hong Kong Co., […]
On July 28, 2015 the U.S. steel mills filed antidumping and countervailing duty trade suits on cold rolled steels against China, Brazil, Russia, India and Korea. Of the countries named, China was by far the largest exporter of cold rolled steel to the United States and the country with the biggest target on its back. […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for December. Based on the data through the first 15 days of the month it appears December imports will be very similar to November. We remind our readers that license data this early in the month should be taken with a grain […]
SSAB expects to report lower earnings for fourth quarter due to decreased volumes and falling prices in Europe and North America but is looking forward to better market conditions in Q1. Market conditions have deteriorated further than expected from the previous forecast for fourth quarter. Plate and strip market prices fell sharply during the quarter […]
The following article is one that is produced for our Premium level members once we release the latest Imports by Product, Port & Country data into our website. In this article we want to give you a little feel for the data. Once you start reviewing imports by port you can begin to ask questions […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of October 2015 was 8,868,427 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. October supply […]
Union workers at Allegheny Technologies have been locked out of the company for more than four months after balking at concessions in the company’s final proposal. The lockout was an insult to USW workers who agreed to earlier concessions to bring a $1.2 billion steel rolling mill to Brackenridge, Pa. The mill was considered vital […]
AK Steel plans to begin layoffs at its plant in Ashland, Ky., during the week of Christmas. Scott Conley, President of USW Local 1865 said 615 to 620 people will be laid off and everyone should be out of the hot end of the plant by December 31. AK Steel executives blame the layoffs on […]
Allegheny Technologies announced it will take rightsizing actions to align its Flat Rolled Products operations to challenging market conditions. The standard stainless melt shop and sheet finishing operations at the Midland, Pa., facility will be idled in January 2016. The grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) operations in Bagdad, Pa., will be idled by April 2016. Restart […]
This report is a detailed drill down into imports of hot band through October, beginning with the big picture and ending with exactly what came into a region of significance to your business and where it came from. SMU has developed a series of reports that cover hot rolled, cold rolled, HDG, other metallic coated […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison showing the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both […]
Layoffs at US Steel Granite City Works are expected to begin December 27, according to reports by USW leaders in the Dec. 10 Bellville News-Democrat. US Steel announced in October that it was considering idling the steel plant in Granite City and issued WARN notices to over 2000 workers. Shortly before Thanksgiving the company confirmed […]
The House passed the long-awaited customs bill by a 256-158 margin on Friday. The conference report of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (H.R.644) includes the ENFORCE act that provides new measures sought after by the steel industry to address evasion of antidumping and countervailing duties. The bill will head to the Senate for […]
Two domestic mills made price moves on Wednesday as NLMK USA and then AK Steel came out with price increases on flat rolled steel. The NLMK announcement did not reference specific base price levels while the AK Steel announcement did. NLMK USA was the first to announce, which they did in an letter to their […]
The rumblings of a price increase have been building for a couple of weeks now as mills like SDI (Butler) and Nucor (Berkeley) have been quietly asking for higher steel prices from their customers prior to any announcements being made. On Tuesday we traded emails with a service center executive who told us, “While rumblings […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: The stock market is taking a […]
In the first ten months of this year bulk scrap exports were 10,889,000 tonnes for an annual rate of 14,519,000 tonnes, down by 15.6 percent from the first ten months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages (3MMA) for 2015 and on the annual monthly average […]
The Canada Border Services Agency has made final determinations that dumping has occurred on hot-rolled carbon steel plate and high-strength low-alloy steel plate originating in or exported from India and Russia and subsidizing on hot-rolled carbon steel plate and high-strength low-alloy steel plate originating in or exported from India. The investigation on subsidizing from Russia […]
Licensed data for November was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on December 4th. 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 November […]
Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for November and on Friday of this past week they also released Final Census data for the month of October. The final October number was just over 3.0 million net tons while the license data for November appears will be 400,000 less […]
Chinese exported 101.7 million metric tons, or 112 million short tons, of steel in the first 11 months of 2015, according to customs data reported by Bloomberg. Exports increased by 22 percent year over year, almost as much as the total annual capacity of U.S. steel mills of 120 million tons. As China’s economic slowdown […]
AISI and eight other steel associations met with government officials in Paris on December 1 to present arguments against granting China Market Economy status. The press release from AISI follows: PARIS – The American Iron and Steel Institute, the Steel Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Steel Producers Association, CANACERO (the Mexican steel association), Alacero (the Latin […]
The following letter to the editor was received over the weekend from Peter Brebach, CEO of Iron Angels of Colorado, in response to an article written about the Chinese Iron and Steel Association (CISA) who recently complained about the Chinese mills being pointed at as being responsible for the steel industry woes in the rest […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data collected through December 1st for the month of November. Based on license data (which can vary from the final census numbers) November foreign steel imports should be approximately 2.5 million net tons. If correct, this would be the lowest level seen since December 2013 which was the […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Tonight I thought I would present a question posed to me within the past couple of days and ask for your input in answering the question. How would you respond to this? Has the steel industry in the US stopped following laws of economics or are we living the great delusion of “ok” demand? Consider […]
The month of November saw a continuation of lower flat rolled steel prices, Momentum and Sentiment as buyers and sellers struggle to find a bottom to what has become an extended slide going back to May 2015. November benchmark hot rolled prices (SMU average) Dropped $15 per ton during the course of the month and […]