The pace of sheet price declines accelerated this week as steel buyers said that domestic mills were competing against each other while also coping with higher-than-expected import volumes. “They are getting rid of the fluff. When you can pit 2-3 mills against each other, the fat margins get cut,” one industry source said.
Prices for galvanized products have been falling for more than a month, and market participants expect this trend to continue in the near term.
ArcelorMittal indicated that a sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel could lead to it taking full control of AM/NS Calvert, its joint venture sheet mill in Alabama. "Typically, in such situations, when there is a selling partner, they sell it to the other partner in the joint venture, right. So I could imagine such a situation would develop,” Mittal said.
Steel prices stabilized in early January before they began to inflect lower midway through last month. Tags peaked at $1,045 per short ton (st) during the first week of January, even as some mills tried to push prices higher, to no avail. Hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices ended January at an average of $1,000/st, declining by $45/st during the month.
Based on initial license data for January, steel imports appear to have risen to a six-month high, and flat-rolled steel imports to a seven-month high.
Rig counts in the US and Canada were mixed for the week ended Feb. 9, with US totals moving up and Canadian holding unchanged week on week (w/w), Baker Hughes’ latest data shows. US The number of active rotary rigs in the US inched back up by four to 623. Oil rigs were unchanged at […]
There seems to be bit of high-stakes chicken going on in the domestic sheet market. Prices have been moving lower for most of the year, and our hot-rolled (HR) coil price on Tuesday fell below $1,000 per short ton (st) on average. Crossing that threshold does not seem to have resulted in a flurry of buying activity.
More supply coming online and an unchanging demand environment – two key themes for 2024 – could soon bring the steel sheet storm to a market near you.
ArcelorMittal swung to a loss in the fourth quarter largely because of costs associated with a deadly coal mining disaster last year in Kazakhstan. The Luxembourg-based steelmaker sold its Kazakhstan operations in December and no longer owns and operates coal mines as a result of the move, according to comments released along with earnings data on Thursday.
Domestic steel shipments increased in December on-year but were down from the previous month, according to the latest data released by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
It was another steady drip lower, down $20/st to $980/st. In other words, the kind of on-and-off declines we’ve been seeing since the start of the year.
Sheet prices fell across the board this week as SMU’s hot-rolled (HR) coil price slipped below $1,000 per short ton (st) on average for the first time since November.
Timna Tanners, managing director of equity research at Wolfe Research, will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat. The chat will be on Wednesday, Feb. 7, at 11 a.m. ET. You can join the ~600 people who have already registered here.
At the final hour, the trade case investigating unfairly traded imports of tin mill products has been terminated.
SMU’s latest survey results make it clear that the sheet market has hit an inflection point and headed lower. But while some market participants think that sheet prices might bottom within the next month or so, others expect a more protracted downturn.
Rig counts in the US and Canada were mixed, with US totals slipping and Canadian counts moving higher week on week (w/w) for the week ended Feb. 2, Baker Hughes’ latest data shows.
Timna Tanners, managing director of equity research at Wolfe Research, will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat on Feb. 7.
The US Midwest premium was flat week over week (w/w) at 18.8–19.4¢/lb. Again, the premium has exhibited remarkably low levels of volatility and has yet to react to news in the geopolitical or macroeconomic spaces.
Much has happened since we last met on Jan. 4. Cleveland-Cliffs announced a price increase on Jan. 3, lifting the futures market in the morning only for it to finish the day $20-$30 per short ton (st) below those morning highs. On Jan. 4, the futures curve was down another $10-$28/st. And in my column for SMU that evening, I asked a question: Would those aggressive sellers be met with a short-squeeze forcing them to cover, or had the market peaked with the negative price action to start the year the proverbial canary in the coal mine?
I thought Nippon Steel’s $14.1-billion deal for U.S. Steel might become a political football in this year’s presidential election. Now there is little doubt that it will after Trump told reporters in Washington, D.C., earlier this week that he would “absolutely” block the transaction – and that he would do so “instantaneously.”
Steel mill lead times for sheet products saw substantial declines over the past two weeks, while production times for plate held steady during the month of January.
Norfolk Iron & Metal is installing a new Butech Bliss temper mill cut-to-length line at its Port of Catoosa processing facility near Tulsa, Okla.
Sheet prices were mixed this week, with hot-rolled (HR) coil unchanged but cold-rolled and coated prices down.
Nucor is optimistic about long-term activity from bridges and highways, semiconductor chip plants and renewable energy, but still sees some short-term challenges. The North Carolina-headquartered steelmaker expects the federal programs that support these megatrends “to add somewhere between 5 million to 8 million tons of incremental annual demand for steel over the next several years,” […]
With rising steelmaking capacity and relatively flat demand, industry analysts are predicting lower prices for sheet products this year.
Nucor Corp. reported a decline in profits during the fourth quarter due to lower pricing and volumes.
Rig counts in the US and Canada both notched week-on-week increases for the week ended Jan. 26, Baker Hughes’ latest data shows.
December’s import level was slightly lower than an earlier license count had suggested, resulting in December marking the second-slowest month for imports in 2023.
The 35th Annual Tampa Steel Conference starts in just a few days. As one of the premier domestic steel conferences, it’s the perfect way to kick off 2024. It’s not too late to register if you haven’t already done so, but make sure to book now!
U.S. Steel has idled its USS-UPI LLC subsidiary in Pittsburg, Calif., a company spokesperson confirmed. The idling happened in December, they said in an email to SMU.