Tag: US

Three vocal Republican senators are demanding that President Joe Biden block the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel.

Stelco reported a positive start to 2024 in its first-quarter earnings report on Thursday. And with steady demand and a stable market, the Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker is optimistic for the remainder of the year.

CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, May 15, at 11 am ET. You can register here. Note that the live webinar is free for all to attend. A recording will be available only to SMU members.

US hot-rolled (HR) coil prices declined again, tightening their premium over offshore hot band, and moving closer to parity.

Tariffs on unfairly traded steel and other products help to stabilize America’s most important industries, safeguard tens of thousands of jobs, and protect national security. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW), never seeks these remedies lightly. And presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, implement them only after diligent investigations documenting the harm that foreign adversaries intentionally inflict upon our country with dumping, overproduction and other kinds of trade cheating. I don’t think Lewis Leibowitz considered these points while criticizing tariffs in his excessively pro-free-trade column, “Where is the voice of the consumer?” on May 5.

Most steel products tracked by SMU saw lead times contract this week from two weeks earlier, according to SMU’s most recent survey data.

Brazil-based Gerdau has announced it will carry out a feasibility study into the greenfield development of a 600,000 metric-ton-per-year (mt) special steel plant in Mexico.

Klöckner & Co. logged a wider net loss in the first quarter on-year, but the Duisburg, Germany-based service center group expects higher shipments and sales in the upcoming three months.

Thyssenkrupp Materials Services is continuing its expansion in North America. It announced the opening of a new steel service center in Sinton, Texas, to primarily serve the automotive, HVAC, and construction markets.

The amount of new steel available to the US market, dubbed apparent steel supply, rebounded 7% in March, according to SMU calculations on Department of Commerce and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) data.

Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)

Sheet prices fell across the board this week – largely in response to Nucor’s $65-per-short-ton price cut for hot-rolled (HR) coil on Monday morning. SMU’s HR coil price is $780/st on average, a $35/st decrease week over week (w/w). Our average cold-rolled coil price is $1,090/st (down $30/st w/w). Our galvanized base price is $1,100/st […]

When we were asked to provide some additional commentary to SMU about the futures markets for flat rolled, our only reluctance to contribute was rooted merely in the fact that SMU (1) already offers an excellent array of authors on this topic and (2) a concern regarding what new ground could be covered that hasn’t already been discussed to death on this issue. Thankfully, however, Nucor has offered up something we can describe, without hyperbole, as simply revolutionary for spot pricing in flat rolled - a development that we simply could not resist commenting on with respect to its probable impacts on the futures market.

US steel exports eased through March but remain healthy, having reached a six-month high in February

US raw steel output ticked up last week, according to the latest American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) data.

The EU has approved Tokyo-based Nippon Steel Corp.’s (NSC’s) proposed buy of U.S. Steel, a report in Reuters on Monday said.

United Auto Workers (UAW) members have ratified a work contract with Daimler Truck North America.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the summer doldrums might have arrived a little early? I could be wrong there. It’s possible we could see a jump in prices should buyers need to step back into the market to restock. I’ll be curious to see what service center inventories are when we update those figures on May 15. In the meantime, just about everyone we survey thinks HR prices have peaked or soon will. (See slide 17 in the April 26 survey.) Lead times have flattened out. And some of you tell me that you’re starting to see signs of them pulling back. (We’ll know more when we update our lead time data on Thursday.)

The election campaign is white-hot right now, and the Biden administration is touting its protectionist message. Just this past week, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) touted this message. In a release entitled “What They are Saying,” USTR quoted many of the usual protectionist groups praising government action against Chinese steel exports and shipbuilding. Consuming industries in the United States, which employ many times the American workers as the industries seeking trade protection, were not mentioned.

CRU principal analyst Ryan McKinley will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, May 15, at 11 am ET. McKinley is instrumental in determining CRU’s benchmark hot-rolled (HR) coil price. He’ll discuss his role, his background in steel, and how the index works.

March 2024 represents the third highest monthly steel import rate seen over the prior year.

US announces new import duties on aluminum extrusions The US Department of Commerce has placed preliminary antidumping (AD) duties of 2-600% on imports of aluminum extrusions from 14 countries. The rates are: “[The findings] show just how widespread dumping practices are globally and highlight the importance of strongly enforcing the antidumping laws to shield US […]

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

Drilling activity declined in the US but increased in Canada, according to the latest data from Baker Hughes.

Construction spending in the US in March was basically steady from the previous month but showed notable year-on-year (y/y) growth.

Olympic Steel logged lower earnings in the first quarter of 2024, but the company said all three of its segments contributed to profitability.

The sale of U.S. Steel Corp. to Nippon Steel Corp. has been delayed by the US Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation. The Justice Department, which is conducting an antitrust review of the merger, has requested additional information from both USS and NSC. The companies originally anticipated closing the sale in the second or third quarter […]

As we approach “buy week,” a term industry veterans use to refer to steel mill scrap buying time and an excuse to remain in the office, we have seen a variety of slants on the May market.

U.S. Steel posted slightly lower Q1’24 earnings as stronger earnings from its sheet mills were partially offset by a weaker performance from it tubular division. All told, the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker reported Q1’24 earnings of $171 million. That's down 14.1% from $199 million in Q1’23 on sales that fell 6.9% to $4.16 billion in the same comparison.

US steel mill shipments dropped in March on-year but were up from February, according to the most recent figures from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).