The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has released Final Census numbers on foreign steel imported into the United States through November 2016 and has updated license data for the month of December 2016. This provides us with our first look at imports for the year so we can do a comparison against 2015 to see […]
This article was previously published on Wednesday, January 11th for our Premium level members. We are sharing this article with our Executive level members as we thought it would be interesting to look at our 2016 import analysis and then be aware that we have much more data available in our website for our Premium […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled coil prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of foreign hot rolled coil prices. We […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of November 2016 was 8,144,758 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. November apparent […]
In the first eleven months of 2016, total ferrous steel scrap exports were 11,428,000 tonnes, down by 11.8 percent from the first 11 months of 2015. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2016 and on the annual monthly average for previous years. The graph shows that exports […]
Essar Steel Minnesota is suing Essar Global Group for $1 billion in damages for financial misconduct related to its uncompleted iron ore-facility. Essar Minnesota alleges that parent company Essar Global Fund failed to provide necessary operating funds and make investments needed to complete the iron ore pellet plant under construction at ESML. The motion also […]
OK, don’t get freaked out (yet) as the new flat rolled steel base price increases aren’t really impacting the numbers for this week. However, there were a couple of steel mills already seeking higher hot rolled, cold rolled and coated prices prior to the announcement. We did collect some of that data in tonight’s steel […]
On Friday of this past week AK Steel announced a $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) spot base price increase on all the flat rolled products they produce: hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steels. On Monday morning, NLMK USA followed with the same $40 per ton announcement. We learned NLMK lead times are in February on […]
AK Steel and NLMK USA raised flat rolled steel prices by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) on all new spot sales of flat rolled steels (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized). At the same time, SMU understands that Steel Dynamics has opened their order books for February and are quoting prices that are approximately $40 per ton […]
For the week ending January 7, 2017, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,684,000 net tons of raw steel, a 5.8 percent increase over the previous week and a 4.8 percent increase over the revised rate from the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate […]
We believe that misinformation (or lack of) about regional steel import volumes is often used to influence purchase decisions. Our intent with this analysis of tonnage by district of entry is to describe in detail what is going on in a company’s immediate neighborhood and thus provide a negotiating advantage for for premium subscribers. We are now […]
The following article was provided to Steel Market Update by Beijing Metal Import and Export Company, Ltd. out of China. It is their view of the Chinese steel markets for the week ending at Sunday, January 8th. After the article we will have some independent comments from another Asian steel trading source of ours who […]
On Friday, January 6, 2017, AK Steel became the first U.S. steel mill to increases flat rolled steel spot prices. The mill announced an increase of $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) effective immediately on all flat rolled, which for them includes hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel products. This is now the fifth (5th) price […]
Ferrous scrap price negotiations for January were slow to develop but by late Thursday and into Friday prices firmed and deals between the domestic steel mills and the scrap dealers were getting done. The two largest scrap buyers, David J Joseph (Nucor) and Omnisource (Steel Dynamics), entered the market late during the week at $30 […]
There was very little movement in flat rolled steel prices according to the Platts and Steel Market Update steel indexes. This is expected to change as we move into the second week of the New Year as AK Steel announced a new $40 per ton price increase on Friday. Benchmark hot rolled is being reported […]
The steel buyers and sellers of steel who responded to our first flat rolled steel market trends survey of the New Year foretold the move by AK Steel to raise flat rolled steel prices late on Friday. Eighty-one percent of the respondents reported that they were expecting another flat rolled steel price increase (the 5th […]
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported the Final Census numbers for November foreign steel imports into the United States. November steel imports totaled 2,805,763 net tons. This was approximately 100,000 tons higher than October. When looking at the individual items it appears the difference between the two months can be found in the […]
January scrap negotiations have begun between the domestic (USA & Canada) steel mills and their scrap suppliers. As one large scrap company put it, “Things are slow to develop today, but I’m anticipating some movement by day’s end. This market has been sort of like a junior high dance at this point, with the reluctant […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. Besides writing Futures articles for […]
Earlier this week we reported on the status of the Chinese steel markets and steel export price offers as of the end of this past week. Both trading company sources used by SMU reported that prices were artificially high and the expectation was that they would fall if not soon by no later than the […]
Licensed data for December was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on January 3rd. An explanation of the methodology that use at SMU to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. All volumes in this analysis are reported in short tons. In December, on […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of November 2016. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on over 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent […]
The engines are warming up and the expectation is for a better 2017 than 2016. The data we collected today was not significantly different than what we were seeing one week ago. Many mills are telling their customers they are on an “inquire only” basis when it comes to new spot orders. We are also […]
When we ended 2015 benchmark hot rolled base prices averaged $375 per ton ($18.75/cwt), cold rolled base average was $515 per ton ($25.75/cwt) and the spread between HRC and CRC base prices was $140 per ton ($7.00/cwt). Galvanized base prices averaged $510 per ton ($25.50/cwt) and the spread between HRC base and that of Galvanized […]
We ended 2016 with a semblance of agreement as to where flat rolled steel prices stood. The table below is for last week and does not include price adjustments that may have been made this week. Hot rolled prices now average more than $600 per ton with SMU at $610 per ton and SteelBenchmarker $608 […]
For the week ending December 31, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,592,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.7 percent decrease over the previous week but a 7.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago (revised). The estimated capacity utilization rate is 67.1 percent, […]
We are but a few days away from the beginning of the New Year. We thought it prudent as we plan for 2017 that we take a look at what transpired with flat rolled steel prices over the course of the past 12 months. Because the market “bottomed” in December 2015 we have expanded our […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of foreign hot rolled coil prices. We were finding […]
For the week ending December 24, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,636,000 net tons of raw steel, a 3.4 percent decrease over the previous week but a 10.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago (revised). The estimated capacity utilization rate is 69.0 percent, […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel Futures HR futures have been quiet going into the holiday week as reflected both in the curve values and in the spot […]