NLMK USA has gotten the go-ahead on a new walking beam furnace for the Pennsylvania plant. Some pre-construction has already begun. James Baker, Jr. told us in an email, “We will be installing a walking beam furnace in Farrell. We have already started on initial site prep with target completion date of September 2018. There […]
There has been a great deal of discussion on how the Trump administration will affect manufacturing and the steel industry in the coming months. Steel Market Update asked AISI and domestic steel mills what regulations they would like to see repealed under the new administration and what kind of environment for steel and manufacturing they […]
As of late this afternoon www.Kitco.com was reporting zinc spot pricing around $1.22 per pound. Zinc recently reported prices not seen in the past 9 years and those of you buying galvanized and Galvalume steels need to be aware of how zinc is trading. The U.S. steel mills published new extras just as zinc pierced […]
On Tuesday of this week Steel Market Update (SMU) and one of our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshops toured the Big River Steel facility in Osceola, Arkansas. We conducted the classroom portion of our program in Memphis and then drove to the mill for our tour and then we moved […]
A note to our Premium level members, we put out a Premium supplemental newsletter this afternoon that covered an extensive analysis of the MSCI data (long and flat rolled), there is also an article on currency values for steel trading nations (not good news for domestic mills as dollar has been strengthening), there is a […]
On Monday ArcelorMittal USA announced their third flat rolled steel price increase in less than a month. The mill informed their customers of their intention to raise base prices on all flat rolled products. On Tuesday NLMK USA followed the AM lead while Nucor and AK Steel came out with a $40 per ton price […]
Good evening from Memphis, Tennessee and Ocseola, Arkansas home of Big River Steel. Earlier today our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop held our class on the steel making and rolling process. The morning session was then followed by a trip to Osceola and a tour of the brand new (so […]
Once per month HARDI* wholesalers conduct a galvanized steel conference call so they can better understand what is happening in the broader markets as they deal with steel pricing, demand and inventory issues. The HARDI monthly call was held on Wednesday, November 9, just one day after the presidential election. Not surprisingly, the future of […]
Nucor Plate Mill Group was the first of the plate mills to reach out to their customers and advise them of their intention to take plate prices up by $50 per ton. On Tuesday of this week, Nucor sent a letter via email to their customers stating, “Due to current market dynamics, plate pricing has […]
On Wednesday of this week I participated in the monthly HARDI conference call (see article in tonight’s newsletter). During the call one of the executives from an east coast HVAC wholesaler told the group that he didn’t believe prices could or would move much higher from here. I disagreed with him. One of the justifications […]
After ArcelorMittal USA announced specific minimum base price levels on Monday we had three steel mills come out with flat rolled steel price announcements on Tuesday. However, none of the mills advised of specific base price levels but rather announced dollar per ton increases. The three mills are Nucor, AK Steel and NLMK USA. Nucor […]
On Monday the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated an investigation against China for trying to circumvent antidumping and countervailing duty orders. The DOC was responding to petitions filed by the domestic steel industry on cold rolled. The DOC also initiated an investigation on CORE (corrosion resistant) which SMU will cover in a separate article. There […]
On Monday the U.S. Department of Commerce, responding to petitions from ArcelorMittal, Nucor, US Steel, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel, initiated an inquiry of circumvention of the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders against China. The probe will be for hot rolled and cold rolled substrate supplied by China to Vietnam for […]
Our next flat rolled steel market trends analysis will not begin until next Monday, November 7th. We will begin our November surveys on the 7th and the 21st of the month. If you would like to be added to our invitee list please send me an email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. We currently have about 575 people on […]
With all of the domestic steel mills announcing $30 per ton price increases either late last week or early this week, the industry is waiting to see if there was a surge of orders and how those orders have impacted lead times. Everyone knows if lead times begin to extend then buyers will have no […]
We continue to watch flat rolled steel prices as anytime the mills announce a price increase it takes time to develop the “target” price. You have to remember that there is a range of prices – not everyone was paying $470 per ton for hot rolled coil before the price increase announcements were made. Some […]
On Friday morning US Steel got the ball rolling by announcing a $30 per ton price increase on all spot sales of flat rolled steel (hot rolled, cold rolled and coated products). Before the afternoon was out two other steel mills followed: Nucor and California Steel Industries. On Monday a number of mills were heard […]
We have an article about this in tonight’s newsletter as well but I want to make sure that everyone is aware that our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop is being held in Huntsville, Alabama on January 24 & 25, 2017. As part of this workshop we will tour the […]
On Friday morning US Steel became the first domestic steel producer to announce a flat rolled steel price increase. Later in the day Nucor and California Steel Industries (CSI) followed with similar announcements. SMU expects other steel mills to follow with announcements of their own as this new week gets underway. On October 21, 2016 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) made two market adjustments on Friday afternoon (Friday, October 21st). We have adjusted the range on our hot rolled index to $440 per ton on the low end up to $500 per ton on the high side. Our average is now $470 per ton ($23.50.cwt). This is $10 per ton lower […]
On Friday I got a number of messages from people wanting to know how they can get information about a price increase announcement being made as soon as it comes out (or shortly thereafter). Right now what I try to do when announcements come out is to put it out on my Twitter account (@SMUSteel) […]
The final three holdouts in the Standard Iron Works v. ArcelorMittal et al. antitrust litigation have come to a settlement. Steel Dynamics, Nucor and SSAB have agreed to settle price-fixing claims for a combined total of $30 million. Steel Dynamics issued an announcement on Tuesday that it will pay $4.6 million in the class action […]
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 […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum reported sales of $2.19 billion, down 0.8 percent from Q2 and down 4.4 percent from Q3 2015. Tons sold were down 4.9 percent from the previous quarter to 1,445,500 tons with average selling price per ton up 4.4 percent, sequentially. Reliance was able to maintain during most of the quarter the […]
The conversation has begun regarding when flat rolled steel prices will end their slide and reverse course. Flat rolled steel prices have been in a steep decline since mid-June 2016 when benchmark hot rolled prices peaked at $635 per ton ($31.75/cwt, SMU index average) FOB domestic mill. Since then steel prices have retreated $145 per […]
Nucor Plate Mill Group began advising their customers on Tuesday of their intention to raise carbon and alloy plate as well as heat-treated plate prices. The mill advised their customers in an emailed letter with the following (reaction to the increase comes after the Nucor letter below): October 11, 2016 To our Valued Customers, Effective […]
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 […]
After our last issue of Steel Market Update was published we received an email “letter to the editor” from a steel trading company regarding circumvention and other issues facing the domestic steel industry. Here is what the letter said: “After reading your update tonight and having been on a conference call with our Washington DC […]
John Ferriola, Chairman, CEO and President of Nucor Corp., has been elected Chairman of the World Steel Association (worldsteel). The elections for officers and the 2016 Executive Committee were held at worldsteel’s 50th Annual Conference in Dubai, UAE. Officers for worldsteel will serve for a period of one year. The new officers for 2016/2017 are: […]
In David Feldstein’s article on the HRC Futures market he correctly points out one of the factors that steel buyers need to watch closely is the value of the dollar against the currency of the international steel trading nations. As the dollar increases in value those wanting to ship steel here also increases. As the […]