I want to take a moment to thank all of the attendees who attended our Steel 101 workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. We had a great two days and the Nucor team at Decatur did a great job hosting our mill tour on Tuesday of this week. Thank you again to Nucor for supporting our educational […]
Are cracks starting to develop in the floor of steel prices? Are any cracks a harbinger to a reversal of flat rolled steel prices? It is too early to tell. However, buyers and sellers of steel need to be aware of that the markets may be in the early stage of change. Since the beginning […]
SMU sources advised that US Steel Great Lakes had a furnace issue due to a leaking water line and a weld gas explosion. They were down for about a shift and are now back up and working for the time being. I wrote the Price Momentum article this evening to make sure that there was […]
The Final Thoughts section is the area where I get to provide my opinions about what I am seeing and sensing in the market. I have been debating over the weekend whether or not now is the time to adjust our Price Momentum Indicator from Higher to Neutral. A Neutral reading would mean prices are […]
On January 18, 2017, the Department of Commerce announced its final affirmative determinations in the antidumping and countervailing investigations of imports of cut-to-length steel plate from China. The China-wide rate for antidumping was established at 68.27 percent. The China-wide entity was assigned duties based on adverse facts for failure to cooperate with the investigation. The final subsidy […]
Our next Steel 101 workshop will be held in Toledo, Ohio on April 11-12th. Included will be a tour of the North Star Bluescope steel mill. We should have details and registration available on our website by the end of the week. Late today I received a note from one of my pig iron sources. […]
A special thank you to the companies who have stepped up early to be sponsors at this year’s Steel Summit Conference: Our Conference Sponsor – Pacesetter as well as our two Corporate Sponsors – Bank of America and Mill Steel. We also have one break sponsor at the moment – Kenwal and we have two […]
On Friday of this past week AK Steel announced a $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) spot base price increase on all the flat rolled products they produce: hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steels. On Monday morning, NLMK USA followed with the same $40 per ton announcement. We learned NLMK lead times are in February on […]
AK Steel and NLMK USA raised flat rolled steel prices by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) on all new spot sales of flat rolled steels (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized). At the same time, SMU understands that Steel Dynamics has opened their order books for February and are quoting prices that are approximately $40 per ton […]
As expected, the domestic steel mills began 2017 right where they left off. Another $30-$40 per ton of price increases on top of the $140 per ton of increases leveled on their spot customers since late October through the end of 2016. The key from here is if business, both at the steel mills, as […]
Ferrous scrap price negotiations for January were slow to develop but by late Thursday and into Friday prices firmed and deals between the domestic steel mills and the scrap dealers were getting done. The two largest scrap buyers, David J Joseph (Nucor) and Omnisource (Steel Dynamics), entered the market late during the week at $30 […]
On Wednesday morning SSAB informed their customers of their intention to increase transaction prices by $50 per ton ($2.50/cwt) “effective immediately on all new non-contract orders.” Later in the day Nucor Plate Mill Group followed the SSAB lead and also increased their spot prices on carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate by $50 per ton. Where […]
A worker at Nucor-Yamato was killed in an accident at the Blytheville facility on Tuesday. Locomotive operator Bobby Sellars was injured when caught between two rail cars while working in the rail yard on Tuesday afternoon. Nucor-Yamato vice president and general manager Leon Topalian released the following statement on Wednesday: Nucor-Yamato Steel Company is investigating […]
Nucor announced today that fourth quarter results are likely to be lower than third quarter due to lower margins in the steel mills segment, particularly at the company’s sheet mills, and seasonal slower activity. The raw materials segment is also expected to decline significantly, returning to a loss position due to lower pricing at Nucor’s […]
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) announced today that it has agreed to acquire Republic Conduit, a leading manufacturer of steel electrical conduit in North America, from Luxembourg-based Tenaris S.A. for $335 million, or approximately 6x the average of its 2015 and projected 2016 EBITDA. Republic Conduit’s annual shipment volume […]
There are a number of players in the market that are overly concerned (in my opinion) about the restart of the USS Granite City hot strip mill (they are not yet restarting the two idled blast furnaces so they are not adding any new raw steel production into the market) and Mingo Junction (reported to […]
On Wednesday SSAB, Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA all announced a $40 per ton price increase on plate products. In a letter emailed to their customers Nucor advised of their intention to increase plate prices with: Effective immediately, the Nucor Plate Mill Group will increase transaction prices on all new orders for carbon, alloy and heat-treated […]
Nucor Corp. announced today that it will acquire Southland Tube, a manufacturer of hollow structural section (HSS) tubing for $130 million. Southland Tube is located in Birmingham, Alabama and is the third largest provider of HSS steel tubing in the HSS market with annual shipments of approximately 240,000 tons. HSS is used in structural and […]
Late in the day on Wednesday, Nucor and NLMK USA advised their customers of their intention to raise spot flat rolled prices by an additional $40 per ton. This follows ArcelorMittal’s announcement on Tuesday of specific minimum base price levels of $600 per ton hot rolled, $820 per ton cold rolled and coated steel products […]
Ferrous scrap prices are poised to increase to the domestic steel mills and negotiations are under way. The domestic mills did not cancel the open orders that have not yet been delivered which is a sure sign that they expect prices to be higher in December than what they negotiated in November. A pig iron […]
The Department of Commerce has announced its affirmative final determinations in the antidumping investigations of imports of steel cut-to-length plate from Brazil, South Africa and Turkey. Brazil mandatory respondents were assigned dumping margins of 74.52 percent based on adverse facts for failure to cooperate in the investigation. All other producers and exporters in Brazil will […]
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 […]