MID-SHIP continues to report concerns over weak demand in the dry cargo market coupled with over-supply of ships. The drop in shipping to and from China has pushed freight rates to their lowest levels since the mid 1980s according to the May 12 MID-SHIP Report. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) was at a low of […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in March continue to be almost double that which existed before the […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market to enable a side by side comparison and 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 supply and mill shipments of sheet […]
As we review steel import license data for the first time during the month of May we want to remind our readers not to read too much into the numbers. At this point in the month, we are trying to compare the second week of the month of May against the four previous months to […]
The monthly value of the Federal Reserve Broad Index of the US $ against our major trading partners is reported about one month in arrears. In one month through about April 12th this index weakened by 1.9 percent which was a sharp reversal from the previous seven month trend. The monthly BI is a “Real” […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are split over whether or not the price increase announcements of two weeks ago will actually be collected. This past week we invited approximately 600 companies to participate in our flat rolled steel market survey. Of the more than 100 companies who responded fifty-three percent told SMU that […]
Will Domestic Price Increases Create Opportunities for Foreign Steel? Over the past few months domestic steel prices have become competitive against foreign steel imports. With the price announcements SMU wondered if the increases would widen the spread, thus creating an opportunity for more foreign steel to come to the U.S. During last week’s flat rolled […]
ArcelorMittal’s NAFTA segment, and in particular the US, saw a collapse in steel prices in first quarter. High levels of imports, a strengthening dollar, and a weak energy segment created significant headwinds for the company that are expected to continue in 2015. CFO Aditya Mittal hinted in the earnings conference call that cuts may be […]
Last week was a very busy week, not only for the steel mills and their customers as they try to determine exactly where steel prices are going to go from here, but also for Steel Market Update. We produced our early May flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) and posted the results online for our […]
Perhaps the scrap market can best be described by those actively sourcing/selling ferrous scrap. Here is how one of the larger groups saw the market this week, “The scrap trade was quite tumultuous this week. Scrap demand, both export and domestic was robust, forcing the scrap processors to take a hard look at what sales […]
Licensed data for April was updated on May 5th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to our […]
ArcelorMittal reported a net loss of $728 million in first quarter 2015 compared to a loss of $955 million in fourth quarter 2014. EBITDA was $1.4 billion. Steel shipments were up 3 percent year over year to 21.6 million tonnes. Iron ore shipments rose 5 percent to 9.4 million tonnes. Total sales for the company […]
The 2015 Association for Iron and Steel Technology Steelmaker of the Year Award was presented to Mario Longhi, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Steel Corp. at the AISTech 2015 conference in Cleveland, Ohio on May 5, 2015. The award recognizes the contributions of a prominent individual to the steel industry. Longhi was honored […]
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 March 2015 is 9,575,903 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. March supply […]
I had an interesting email from one of our members who expressed an issue with the reduction of articles written by me. Here is a portion of the email, “When we first subscribed to your publication several years ago, we found that John P was doing most of the writing and he would stick his […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released Final Census Data for the month of March. The final total of foreign steel imported into the United States during the month was 3,615,960 net tons. This is a very small decrease from the 3.7 million tons received during the month of February but is well below the 3.9 […]
Steel buyers in the April ISM Steel Buyers Survey are expecting general economic activity to remain the same during the next six months but were more optimistic regarding sales and production in their specific industry. Forty percent of buyers expect the trend for sales and production to improve, compared to 30 percent in March. Fifty […]
On May 1, Nucor Corp. and SSAB Americas filed a joint request asking the Department of Commerce to find that Chinese producers of cut-to-length (CTL) steel plate are circumventing the antidumping order on CTL plate from China. According to documents submitted to the DOC, Chinese plate producers are adding small amounts of alloys, such as […]
Olympic Steel navigated through falling metal prices for a first quarter net income of $1.1 million. Income was down from $2.8 million in Q1 2014, but better than anticipated by analysts due to higher revenue of $346 million, stronger than expected gross margin (19.1 percent) and lower operating expenses. In the carbon flat products segment, […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of March 2015, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in March were 80,509,000 metric tons, an increase of 18.5 percent from the previous month and an increase of 8.9 percent […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
During the latest slew of earnings conference calls by the domestic steel mills, analysts were relentless in their pursuit of information regarding trade cases which would conceivably impact the flow of imported steel into the United States. The steel mill CEO’s and other mill executives associated with the conference calls were more than willing to […]
There are always two sides to any story. The domestic steel mill view is the influx of foreign steel is due to illegal dumping by the companies or countries exporting steel to the United States. The manufacturing companies who are benefiting from the lower priced imports (and their impact on domestic steel prices) have a […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the first estimate of Q1 2015 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Thursday The annualized growth rate in the first estimate of Q1 GDP was 0.2 percent down from Q4 2014 which came in at 2.2 percent. GDP is measured and reported in chained […]
Steel Market Update spent time over the past few days speaking with trading companies and customers who buy foreign steel to see if the flow of orders has subsided or remains in place. We were especially interested in cold rolled and coated products (galvanized and Galvalume in particular) since so much has been made about […]
The spread between world hot rolled export pricing and that of the domestic average here in the United States continues to be reduced from what we were measuring a couple of months ago. This analysis is based on our review of world export prices and the hot rolled index produced by SMU earlier this week. […]
US Steel spoke at length on the impact that unfairly traded imports have had on results in first quarter. Although, CEO Mario Longhi could not give an estimate for when the next trade case will be filed he did respond, “What I can tell you, it’s not a question of if; it’s a question of […]
The March AIIS imports report shows steel imports falling for the second month in a row. Imports from South Korea rebounded 16.6 percent from February. The AISI report in its entirety follows: Falls Church, VA. April 29, 2015. Steel imports fell for the second straight month in March – and the fourth of the last […]
Late last week one of the smaller mills (North Star Bluescope) not known to cold rolled and galvanized buyers since they only produce hot rolled coils, began moving spot prices higher. One of NS customers advised us toward the end of the week that the mill was looking for $465 per ton ($23.25/cwt) for new […]
AK Steel earnings in first quarter were challenged by high levels of imported carbon steel products, said CEO James Wainscott. “The first quarter of 2015 was certainly more challenging than we anticipated. That because of the extremely high level of imported carbon steel products–unfairly traded imports, in our opinion–that hit our countries shores at the […]