Tag: steel

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, SMU polled steel buyers on an array of topics, ranging from market prices, demand, and inventories to imports and evolving market chatter.

Hold-rolled (HR) prices held roughly steady this week after slipping for much of April. I don’t have any spicy quotes to offer about mostly flat prices. Besides, a lot of the questions I’ve gotten recently have been about demand. Some of you tell me that it’s still stable or improving. Others tell me that it’s suddenly dried up.

Sheet prices were flat or moderately down again this week – underscoring the shift in momentum we’ve seen over the last month. The exception was hot-rolled (HR) coil, which was largely unchanged from last week.

Ryerson swung to a loss in the first quarter of 2024, but the company’s chief executive sees less volatility in the sheet steel market.

US raw steel production slipped again last week. It now stands at a 13-week low, according to the latest American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) data. AISI estimated total domestic steel output estimated to have been 1,701,000 short tons (st) in the week ending April 27. That's down 0.9% compared to the week prior.

Solar tracker maker Nextracker and steel processor JM Steel announced the completion of an expansion of Nextracker-dedicated manufacturing lines at JM’s Leetsdale steel facility near Pittsburgh.

Nucor Corp. announced that its plate mill group would cut prices for as-rolled, discrete, and normalized plate with the opening of its June order book. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said in a letter to customers on Monday, April 29, that tags would be lowered by $90 per short ton (st). That would bring its base price to roughly $1,200/st.

Nucor lowered its weekly base spot price for hot-rolled (HR) coil by $10 per short ton (st) this week.

What a difference a month makes. In late March, it seemed like the US hot-rolled (HR) coil market was poised to cycle upward. Large buyers had re-entered the market and placed big orders earlier in the month. Several outages were underway or upcoming. And expectations were that lead times would continue to extend. Cliffs said […]

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. would still be interested in acquiring some or all of U.S. Steel’s assets, if the proposed deal by Nippon Steel stumbles, according to an article in Bloomberg.

The number of active rigs in the US is now at the lowest level seen in over two years, while Canadian rigs have fallen to a four-month low.

Foreign cold-rolled (CR) coil remains much less expensive than domestic product, according to SMU’s latest check of the market.

SMU’s Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices both rose this week to reach some of the highest levels seen this year.

GrafTech is reporting weak near-term demand for graphite electrodes as economic uncertainty constrains steel production globally.

Steelmaking currently accounts for approximately 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The only way to achieve net zero goals is to significantly reduce steel emissions worldwide. And there is no way to do that without recycling.

If successful in its overtures to Anglo American, BHP will create the world’s largest diversified miner by a country mile. The rationale for this merger is scale and in mining, size matters. 

Cleveland-Cliffs said its base spot hot-rolled (HR) coil price will be $850 per short ton (st) with the opening of its June order book. The company made the announcement in a press release and in a letter to customers on Friday.

Hot-rolled coil and plate lead times contracted this week, with most other products remaining flat, according to SMU's most recent survey data. Cold-rolled products, however, saw lead times extend 0.1 weeks to an average of 7.5 weeks vs. two weeks earlier. Hot rolled and plate lead times both contracted 0.3 weeks from our last market check.

Week-over-week trading activity in US steel derivatives markets was relatively muted, with prices maintaining their downward direction since the beginning of the month. Bids have materialized at the lower end of this range in the May, as the nearby backwardation continues to roll on - just as we saw with April being a premium over May.

I’ve gotten some questions lately about whether the huge gap between domestic hot-rolled coil (HR) prices and those for cold-rolled (CR) and coated is sustainable. I remember being asked similar questions about the wide spread between HR and plate that developed in early 2022. I thought at the time that there was no way that spread could hold. Turned out, I was wrong. That was humbling. And so I’m not going to make any bold predictions this time.

Reliance Inc.’s earnings slumped in the first quarter of 2024, but the company expects better than normal seasonal recovery in demand in the second quarter.

Sheet steel buyers said mills are more willing to talk price on spot orders, according to our most recent survey data.

Destocking at service centers and a downturn in steel pricing impacted Ternium’s shipments in Mexico in the first quarter of the year.

Steel imports held steady in March, up just 1% from February according to preliminary Census data released earlier this week.

US hot-rolled (HR) coil remains more expensive than offshore hot band, though with a tighter premium as prices stateside and abroad have ticked lower in recent weeks.

Algoma Steel Inc. expects to wrap up a previously announced outage on its plate mill by the end of this month, a company spokeswoman said. The outage is part of the Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker’s $130 million CAD ($95 million USD) modernization project. It began in mid-April.

Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) executives said the company's Sinton, Texas, sheet mill should be able to increase melt capacity after an outage earlier this month. Sinton should see "additional improvements in production" after taking "several maintenance days in April," Barry Schneider, SDI president and COO, said in a Q1 earnings conference call on Wednesday.

Lower demand and prices for steel plate impacted SSAB Americas’ results in the first quarter, Swedish parent company SSAB said in its Q1'24 interim report.

Cleveland-Cliffs is working on a solution for its recently idled mill in Weirton, W.Va., that will address pent-up demand for transformers, increase the need for its electrical steel, and get its workforce back to work.

Hybar CEO David Stickler will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, May 1, at 11 a.m. ET. The live webinar is free. A recording will be available to SMU members. You can register here.