Following the post-recession recovery, shipments of hot rolled steel from US mills to domestic locations have been trending in a range for three years. Shipments of hot dipped galvanized sheet and strip declined strongly in Q2 through Q4 2012 and have climbed slightly in 2014. Cold rolled shipments have shown little direction for almost two […]
US Steel received approval on Wednesday from the Ontario Superior Court to proceed with its financing plan for US Steel Canada. A $185 million DIP (debtor-in-possession) loan will keep US Steel Canada operations running through December 2015 while parent company US Steel figures out a restructuring plan under the Canadian Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). […]
Ferrous scrap prices for shipment to the domestic steel mills around the country have been dropping since the negotiations began at the beginning of the month. For most geographical areas scrap prices have declined $15-$20 per gross ton compared to where they were at this point in time last month. Our Chicago area sources are […]
The bankruptcy protection hearing for US Steel Canada was cut short on Monday morning and again on Tuesday as lawyers worked behind the scenes to negotiate a deal on the debtor in possession loan (DIP) and employee pensions. The first meeting scheduled for Monday at 10:00 a.m. in Toronto did not begin until 11:00 a.m. […]
The USW and Ontario officials are determined to not go down easily in the fight to keep US Steel Canada alive. The $185 million that US Steel is loaning to US Canada in DIP financing is under hot dispute by union members and the province. The DIP (debtor-in possession) filing has been called “a thinly […]
Our Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” since the last day of June 2014. We are now entering our 4th month and hot rolled steel prices have barely budged from the center line (OK, there have been some mild gyrations but no clear cut path up or down during the past three months). […]
Global manufacturing growth slowed in September. The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI eased to a 4-month of 52.2 maintaining the general rate of expansion seen throughout 2014. Meaningful growth was mostly limited to the U.S., however, along with improvements in Czech Republic, Ireland, Taiwan and Canada. Growth was stagnant in most of the rest of […]
US Steel Hamilton Works will be put up for sale within two months according to court filings by US Steel Canada’s President and General Manager Michael McQuade. Lake Erie Works is expected to be placed for sale by March 15, 2015. A statement by US Steel Canada Director, Government and Public affairs follows: “From the […]
An explosion at US Steel Fairfield on Sunday evening resulted in the death of two worker and the severe injury of another. US Steel security and paramedics responded to the incident. Edward Lamar Bryant, 53, was pronounced dead on Sunday at UAB Hospital emergency room in Birmingham, Al. Leo Bridges and Mac Bedwell were transported to the […]
Creditors of US Steel Canada are wondering how they are going to recover the money owed to them by the steel company. The Hamilton Spectator reports that US Steel Canada owes more than $94 million to contractors and suppliers, 190 of which are in the Hamilton area. The CCAA process prevents creditors from suing USS […]
Allegheny Technologies, Inc. (ATI) is considering US Steel as a potential partner for a joint venture on its new hot-rolling and processing facility in Brackenridge, Pa., according to equity research firm Cowen and Co. ATI, a diversified specialty materials and components producer, is working with two steel mills to secure the joint venture, according to […]
US Steel announced they will seek court protection from creditor claims against US Steel Canada under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangements Act (CCAA). In the meantime US Steel will provide CA $185 million (US$165 million) to secured debtor-in-possession financing to support the Canadian mills through the end of 2015. For now, US Steel Canada will carry […]
US Steel announced today that as part of its strategic transformation effort it will no longer pursue the expansion of its Keetac iron ore pellet operations at Keewatin, Minn., or continue additional investments into the carbon alloy facility at Gary Works. The expansion at Keetac was intended to upgrade and restart the idled pelletizing line […]
On Monday, Nucor announced their intention to acquire Gallatin Steel and its approximately 1.8 million tons of hot rolling capacity. Today, AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) completed the purchase of the Severstal North America assets. The biggest pieces of the Severstal deal are the Dearborn steel mill, which went to AK Steel, and the Columbus […]
On Monday, Nucor announced their intention to acquire Gallatin Steel and its approximately 1.8 million tons of hot rolling capacity. On Tuesday, AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) completed the purchase of the Severstal North America assets. The biggest pieces of the Severstal deal are the Dearborn steel mill, which went to AK Steel, and the […]
Esmark Steel Group is continuing to pursue the purchase of Serbian steel mill Zelezara Smederevo but is waiting for sale or lease approval by the Serbian government. A spokesperson for Esmark said the company is returning to Serbia next week for continued negotiations and expects the government to announce the final bidders at that time. […]
Steel Market Update featured Timna Tanners, Metals & Mining Analyst, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, and John Anton, Director of Steel Services, IHS Global, at a luncheon presentation at the recent Steel Summit. The topic was commodity and steel forecasts and consolidation of the industry. As usual the two disagreed on some topics and sparked some […]
Are foreign steel prices too low or are US steel prices too high? That is a question faced by trade litigation attorneys Robert Schagrin and Lewis Leibowitz at the recent SMU Steel Summit conference in Atlanta. There is a $300 delta between China and US prices and a $200 delta between Europe and the US […]
Buyers of galvanized steel know that one of the most critical pieces of building pricing is adding the cost charge by the steel mill to apply zinc to steel. If you have had a chance to explore the ‘Resources‘ section of the Steel Market Update website, you may have come across our Steel Mill section […]
There were no surprises raised during the most recent HARDI steel conference call conducted earlier this morning (Tuesday, August 26th). There were no surprises because on the previous call, held in July, the galvanized steel group members discussed the potential for new coating extras as zinc prices rose above $1.00 per pound. As anticipated back […]
A number of steel mills have joined Nucor and US Steel by adjusting their coating extras on galvanized steel. Wheeling Nisshin advised their customers on Monday of this week that they were going to the new U.S. Steel galvanized extras. Severstal also made adjustments to their mills extras but they did not come out with […]
The US International Trade Commission announced Friday that it will impose anti-dumping duties on imports from six of the nine countries accused by U.S. steel producers of dumping OCTG in the US market. The decision includes Korea, who was previously excluded in the preliminary decision, India, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. The Philippines and Thailand […]
TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline has been on hold since 2008 waiting for U.S. presidential approval of the permit to allow the pipeline to cross the U.S./Canada border. President Obama has said he would approve the pipeline only if it did “not significantly exacerbate the climate problem.” Opponents of the pipeline are concerned the pipeline will […]
U.S. Steel has begun to inform their customers of their intention to raise their zinc coating extras effective October 1, 2014. Unlike Nucor, USS did not go back to their 2011 price extras. Based on our quick analysis, the under .020” thru .018” G90 extra is being increased by $1.05/cwt or 11.3 percent. The new […]
One of the Steel Market Update proprietary products is our U.S. Service Center Apparent Inventory Excess/Deficit report and forecast. Once per month, SMU analyzes the MSCI flat rolled steel shipments and flat rolled steel inventories and we calculate whether the steel distributors are either over-inventories (excess) or under-inventoried (deficit) based on our proprietary formula. We […]
Pricing in the HRC futures market has continued slightly upward this week stemming from positive economic data and a bullish outlook within the steel industry. September prices have been trading around $655-667, October prices have been trading between $640-657, and Q4 has traded between $645-651, all about $5-10 improvements week on week. Further down the […]
In the week of August 2nd the four week moving average (4WMA) of raw steel production as reported by the AISI exceeded 1,900,000 tons per week, for the first time since June 16th 2012, (Figure 1). However, capacity utilization at 79.2 percent (4WMA) is still nowhere near where it was before the recession. Capacity is […]
We spent the last two days canvassing as many buyers and mill sellers of steel as we possibly could. Our goal was to gather enough information so we could speak to the development of this market and the direction prices should go from here. What we found is a market that is perhaps stronger than […]
Kloeckner Metals Corp. shipments fell by 3.8 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2014, due to the extended winter, consolidation of sites and the reduction of low-margin business. EBITDA improved by 27 percent from €41 million to €52 million ($55 million to $69.7 million), helped by operational improvements and higher-margins. The company expects US […]
The ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor #7 blast furnace, which underwent a $70 million planned maintenance in the second quarter, is in the ramp up phase. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of this #7 furnace to us,” said Louis Schorsch during ArcelorMittal conference call, “This has been I could say, limping along the last year and […]