The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported steel distributor shipments and inventories on Monday. The MSCI reported U.S. shipments of all steel products totaled 3,135,700 tons during the month of December which was 6.3 percent higher than December 2013. The daily shipment rate was 142,500 tons per day. Total steel inventories (all products) were reported […]
A lot has already been written about the dramatic decline in oil prices, the persistent high imports of energy tubulars, and related issues. What is missing, in my opinion, is some perspective and context to pull it all together. The purpose of this article is to show why the energy sector is so important to […]
EVRAZ North America produced 1.999 million tonnes (2.2 million net tons) of crude steel in 2014, down 8.8 percent from the total in 2013. Crude steel production increased by 5.7 percent to 528,000 tonnes (582,000 tons) in the final quarter of 2014 as compared to third quarter 2014. Finished steel products slipped 8 percent y/y […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated the import license data earlier this afternoon. Based on data collected through January 13, 2015, import licenses are lower at this point in the month than what we saw in September, October, November and December. Licenses for all steel products totaled 100,264 net tons which is much lower than […]
Esmark Inc. can finally celebrate the acquisition of Zelezara Smederevo Steel Works. Chairman and CEO James Bouchard announced Monday that Esmark Europe had been officially notified by the Republic of Serbia as the winning bidder for the steel works. The recently formed entity Esmark Europe BV will have a controlling 80.1 percent stake in the […]
All the indexes followed by Steel Market Update have breached the $600 per ton ($30.00/cwt) average level on benchmark hot rolled steel prices in North America (one exception being SteelBenchmarker who has not yet reported any pricing for the month of January). The average of SMU, CRU and Platts for this past week was $590.67 […]
With the higher value of the U.S. dollar versus other steel trading nation’s currencies, we are seeing exports of steel in November as down slightly over October. November steel exports totaled 953,828 net tons (865,299 metric tons), down 5.6 percent over October but up 1.6 percent from November 2013 (all products). Here is a breakdown […]
The first measurement of our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index in the New Year provided us some mixed results. Current Sentiment, which is how steel buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, was measured at +54. This is well within the optimistic range of our Index but […]
Today we are producing two foreign steel import reports. This one is our normal report and we have a second one following which will look at imports from a different view point. The second report also addresses both long and flat rolled products and is normally available only to our Premium level members. The U.S. […]
This is our second article about foreign steel imports where we look deeper into imports from a three month moving average perspective. We also look at the complete picture by analyzing both long and flat rolled steel products. License data for December was updated on January 6th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the […]
Bidding has closed for Serbian steel mill Zelezara Smederevo with a decision due around February 1. Esmark Steel Group is considered the leading contender out of the 10 bids submitted to the Serbian government. The eventual buyer of the mill will be obligated to ramp up production of Zelezara’s second blast furnace to fifty percent capacity […]
The Chinese central government announced on Wednesday that it would remove the export rebate on certain boron-added steel products effective January 1, 2015. The move was anticipated by our sources in China however the impact of the move may be minimal and short-lived. Steel Market Update received the following information from one of our steel […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated the December 2014 steel import license data. As suspected the volume of requests dropped dramatically from the 4.0 million net ton pace we were seeing earlier in the month to 3.0+ million tons as of December 30th. December total steel imports (alloy and carbon) should be approximately 500,000 tons […]
All of the flat rolled price indices followed by Steel Market Update saw steel prices as continuing their decline but in larger increments than what we have been seeing over the past few weeks. Benchmark hot rolled coil pricing dropped by an average of $11 per ton. Two steel indexes, Steel Market Update and CRU, […]
Steel buyers were few and far between this week as everyone prepares for Christmas and Hanukkah holiday celebrations. Even so, those who were working this week and responding to our queries reported aggressive steel mills on all flat rolled products. We have seen erosion at the upper end of our range on all products and […]
All of the flat rolled steel indexes which reported pricing this past week saw benchmark hot rolled prices as being down and another step closer to touching $600 per ton. From Steel Market Update’s vantage point, the lower end of our range has broken down to $580 per ton ($29.00/cwt). Our HRC average for the […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) released their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index this afternoon. Sentiment, which is a measure as to how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, rose 4 points from the beginning of December and is now at +56. Positive (+) […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in November decreased by 763,700 tons to 2.979 million tons. This was mainly due to a decrease in shipping days from 23 to 19. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments also decreased from 162,700 in October to 156,800. In the eleven years 2004 through 2014 November shipments […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported total steel inventories of 9,195,700 tons. This represents an increase of 15.2 percent above last year and when taking the current shipment rate into consideration, MSCI reported inventories as being 33.1 percent higher than November 2013. The daily shipment rate dropped from 170,100 tons per day (all products) […]
All of the flat rolled steel price indices followed by Steel Market Update moved lower this past week. Based on performance and their ability to keep up with the markets, the three key indices are SMU, CRU and Platts which reported benchmark hot rolled price averages as $615, $614 and $615 per ton, respectively. SteelBenchmarker […]
A quick note to advise our readers of our Holiday publishing and office schedule. We will continue to publish as normal through Tuesday, December 23rd. We will not publish our newsletter on Thursday, December 25th and Sunday, December 28th unless there is important breaking news that we feel must be shared with our readers. We […]
Total October steel imports were recently finalized by the US Department of Commerce at 4,441,271 net tons (4,029,058 metric tons), surpassing the previous high of 4,417,811 tons in August 1998. October had been on pace to be a high tonnage month, but previous preliminary data figures were a few thousand tons shy of breaking the […]
October steel exports totaled 1,010,089 net tons (916,338 metric tons), down 2.3 percent over September and down 10.9 percent from October 2013 (all products). Cut plate exports declined 16.1 percent from September to October to 108,527 tons, but were up 0.6 percent compared to levels one year prior. Exports of coiled plate were 39,950 tons in […]
Hot rolled prices dropped on all the indexes which reported new pricing this past week. Steel Market Update was down $10 per ton to $620 per ton with CRU ($623) and Platts ($625) coming very close to the SMU number. SteelBenchmarker did not report new pricing this past week as they only report HRC prices […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. announced on Tuesday the purchased of Fox Metals and Alloys, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Fox Metals, based in Houston, Texas, is a steel distributor specializing in alloy, carbon and stainless steel bar and plate products, primarily servicing OEMs and machine shops supporting the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. “The […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other flat rolled steel indexes reported benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down $5-$9 per ton this past week. Our average also declined by $5 per ton and now sits at $637 per ton. With at least one mill offering spot hot rolled at, or below, $600 […]
With crude oil prices breaking through $80 per barrel, all eyes are on the Baker Hughes rig count data. The question is will the lower oil prices affect the number of wells being drilled? Most assume there will be an impact, however, it could have a lag effect and take time before there is a […]
Flat rolled steel prices, as reported by Steel Market Update, Platts, CRU this past week (SteelBenchmarker did not report last week) had mixed results. CRU and SMU have hot rolled prices at $634 and $635 respectively. Platts remains stuck at $640 as they have been for a number of weeks now. SteelBenchmarker did not report […]
With crude oil prices breaking through $80 per barrel, all eyes are on the Baker Hughes rig count data. The question is will the lower oil prices affect the number of wells being drilled? Most assume there will be an impact, however, it could have a lag effect and take time before there is a […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in October increased by 244,000 tons to 3.742 million tons. This was due to an increase in shipping days from 21 to 23. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments decreased from 166,600 tons in September to 162,700 in October. In every month this year since March, t/d […]