Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments decreased by 84,700 tons in April to 3.091 million tons. This decrease was driven by the number of shipping days, down by 2 to 21. On a t/d basis shipments increased […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2003 through March 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
On May 17, 2016, the Department of Commerce is scheduled to announce its final determinations in the AD investigations of imports of certain cold-rolled steel flat products from China and Japan and CVD investigation of imports of certain cold-rolled steel flat products from China. The investigations cover certain cold-rolled, flat-rolled, steel products, neither clad, plated, […]
Auto/Steel Partnership – May 11, 2016 — In an effort to assist automakers in meeting stringent fuel economy requirements, the Auto/Steel Partnership (A/SP) announced today the Hemming of Thin Gauge Advanced High-Strength Steel (AHSS) project achieved a 30 percent weight savings using thinner gauge AHSS for automotive closure panels. “The Hemming team achieved positive results […]
Scrap prices settled higher by $20 to $30 per gross ton delivered to the domestic steel mills, according to Steel Market Update (SMU) scrap sources. The rise in ferrous scrap prices has been one of the driving factors behind the flat rolled price increases announced by the domestic steel industry over the past few months. […]
Licensed data for April was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on May 3rd. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of April were […]
AK Steel raised prices earlier today on all flat rolled steels by $60 per ton. The announcement is their 6th going back to early December 2015. Since December they have increased prices another $200 per ton as we have shown in the table below. Buyers and those in the financial community need to be aware […]
Steel Market Update asks our flat rolled steel market trends analysis participants to comment on the status of negotiations between their company and their steel mill suppliers. We want to know how stringent are the mills being when it comes to collecting the announced or original quoted steel price and are they able to collect […]
NanoSteel announced delivery of its first advanced high strength steel to General Motors for initial testing. The new product was developed in partnership with AK Steel and is designed to provide automakers with a new standard in strength, formability and weight for steels used in the production of lightweight, fuel efficient vehicles. NanoSteel says what […]
Olympic Steel reported a narrower than expected net loss of $767,000 for first quarter 2016. Revenues were $258.3 million compared to $346 million in Q1 2015 due to lower prices and volume. First quarter shipments increased, however 16 percent from fourth quarter 2015 recapturing market share from last year’s declining marketplace. “We successfully navigated challenging […]
Steel buyers are beginning to brace themselves for what may well be another tumultuous month of allocations, closed order books and even higher steel prices. At this point it is a foregone conclusion with most buyers that there will be another increase. The question really is how much higher will prices go during the month […]
Earlier today, Steel Market Update participated in a steel conference call hosted by HARDI. Every month the wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil steel to the HVAC industry conduct an informational conference call to evaluate what is happening in the North American market. Over the past few months we have seen the wholesalers much […]
This evening I was talking with a large steel buyer about the fundamentals of the steel market and how long can prices continue to go higher. I told him that I had spoken with another large steel buyer earlier today who told me they could not understand how the fundamentals have changed in China. They […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum posted net income of $92.2 million on sales of $2.16 billion for first quarter 2016. Tons sold were up 8.9 percent from Q4 2015 with average selling price down 15.6 percent from a year ago and down 2.4 percent from the previous quarter. Reliance sold 1,216,700 tons of carbon steel in […]
Nucor announced first quarter 2016 consolidated net earnings within its projected range. Net income was $70.8 million and consolidated net sales were $3.72 billion, a 7 percent increase from Q4. Average sales price per ton decreased 11 percent from Q4, total shipments to outside customers was 5,148,000 tons. Nucor steel mills produced 5,390,000 tons of […]
There is still no light at the end of this tunnel except for coated products which have had three months of shipment growth on a tons / day, (t / d) basis. Total service center carbon steel shipments increased by 142,100 tons in March to 3.176 million tons. This increase was driven by the number […]
Total steel and flat rolled inventories declined during the month of March according to just released data provided by the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI). U.S. steel service centers shipped a total of 3,333,300 tons of steel products during the month of March. Based on a 23 shipping days this equates to a 144,900 tons […]
One of the issues confusing the sheet (flat rolled steel) marketplace is the Raw Steel Production report produced by the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI). This report is produced on a weekly and then again on a monthly basis. The weekly report is released every Monday afternoon and Steel Market Update publishes the data […]
I will be doing an article in Sunday evening’s newsletter about the AISI capacity utilization numbers. The AISI produces their “estimate” of steel production and the percentage of capacity utilization based on 50 percent (or fewer) of the mills reporting production data. I have considered not publishing the data at all because, in my opinion, […]
India has initiated an antidumping investigation into HRC, steel sheet and plate imports from China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia. The products under investigation include HRC of width up to 2100mm and thickness up to 25mm, HR sheet and plates of a width up to 4950 mm and thickness up to 150mm. India steelmakers […]
Licensed data for March was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on April 5th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of March were […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2003 through February 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. has acquired custom sheet metal fabricator Best Manufacturing as of April 1, 2016. The company will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance with current management remaining in place. Headquartered in Jones Arkansas, Best Manufacturing provides various precision fabrication services including laser cutting, shearing, CNC punching, CNC forming and rolling, as […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. has acquired custom sheet metal fabricator Best Manufacturing as of April 1, 2016. The company will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance with current management remaining in place. Headquartered in Jones Arkansas, Best Manufacturing provides various precision fabrication services including laser cutting, shearing, CNC punching, CNC forming and rolling, as […]
According to ArcelorMittal USA comments made during the Association of Steel Distributors meeting over the weekend which SMU attended, a trade case on steel plate imports will be filed within the next few weeks. ArcelorMittal along with Nucor and SSAB have been working on the documentation for an extended period of time and our understanding […]
We know our readers enjoy hearing comments from those with whom we speak on a regular basis regarding market trends and pricing. We have had an active week heading into the first full week of April so here are some of the things our readers and sources are talking about during the last week of […]
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 34. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Nucor plans to invest $4.4 million in its Decatur steel manufacturing plant to upgrade the hot metal pickle line. On Monday, the Decatur Industrial Development Board approved an abatement of about $117,545 in non-educational state, city and county taxes over a 10-year period for the project. “We appreciate Nucor’s continued investment in their Decatur operations […]
Steel Market Update ferrous scrap sources are advising us that scrap prices are poised to move $30 to $50 per gross ton higher for April deliveries than what we saw negotiated at the beginning of March. The issue is supply. The domestic sheet mills are having issues finding all of the tonnage they need and […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out its series of producer price indexes, for thousands of goods and materials. For an explanation of this program see the end of this piece. The latest release last week reported results through February. We run this analysis every three or four months to give readers […]