The flat rolled markets are trying to find where, and what direction, prices should be moving. After being down slightly last week, this week prices are up slightly. There is no clear-cut focus to the market at this moment. As one service center purchasing director put it to us this afternoon, “[Pricing] is all need […]
For the week ending June 25, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,757,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.4 percent increase over the previous week but a 0.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.1 percent, up […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of May 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 […]
Both Platts and Steel Market Update saw flat rolled steel prices as dropping this past week. The question now is this the beginning of a correction or just a bump in the road? From the perspective of ArcelorMittal USA and NLMK USA this is just a bump. If the drop in steel prices continue this […]
The following is the monthly report on exports by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): Falls Church, VA. June 24, 2016. Steel exports increased 2.5 percent from March to April, as both Mexico and Canada increased their purchases from the United States. The 794,537 net tons of exports were almost 6 percent lower than […]
We purposely did not begin this article on where our sources are seeing ferrous scrap prices with an attention grabbing headline as we think readers would be confused. The confusion comes from the pressure the domestic steel mills are expected to put on obsolete grades, like shredded scrap and HMS (heavy melt scrap). Those of […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how they saw trading over the past week: Hot Rolled Coil (HRC) With spot hot rolled (HR) hovering around the $630 per short ton (ST), HR futures interests […]
Today two mills began advising their customers of their intention to raise flat rolled steel prices. ArcelorMittal USA and NLMK USA both came out with increases. ArcelorMittal provided specific base price “minimums” while NLMK USA advised their customers of a flat $30 per ton increase. If all of the other mills follow, this would be […]
Flat rolled steel prices slipped this week even as ArcelorMittal USA announced new spot pricing for the month of August. Steel Market Update (SMU) has been noticing a “topping” of the market over the past few weeks and our expectation is for the market to be a little “sloppy” in the coming weeks. We do […]
Manufacturing companies reported steel service center spot prices as continuing to rise this past week. Seventy-eight percent of the manufacturing companies responding to our mid-June flat rolled steel market trends questionnaire said distributors were continuing to raise spot prices on flat rolled steel. The service centers themselves were less optimistic with only 51 percent of […]
For the week ending June 18, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,750,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.6 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.6 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 74.8 percent, down […]
Production in the month of May, at 139,154,000 metric tons, was up by 3.2 percent from April and the three month moving average (3MMA) that we prefer as a measure was up by 4.5 percent. Capacity is 2.3 billion tonnes per year and the 3MMA of capacity utilization in May was 70.5 percent. This report […]
While in New York City this past week Steel Market Update was asked if the spread between ferrous scrap prices and that of hot rolled coil was at historical highs? We were also asked if the spread between hot rolled and cold rolled/coated base prices were also at historical highs. We asked SMU contributing writer […]
There was very little movement in the SMU and Platts indices this past week. SteelBenchmarker, which only produces their index pricing twice per month, saw a modest rise in their numbers as they catch up with the other indices in the market. Hot rolled is about as close as it has been in many months […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave 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. […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]
“If we all knew the direction steel prices were headed, well I wouldn’t be here with you guys….” This was how the conversation began with one of the contacts SMU made earlier this week while in New York City to attend a number of meetings surrounding the Steel Success Strategies conference. There were a number […]
For the third week the data points collected by Steel Market Update found the flat rolled steel market as stable with only one of our indices showing a minor change in our average since last week. Here is how we see prices this week: Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $620-$650 per ton ($31.00/cwt- $32.50/cwt) […]
For the week ending June 11, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,779,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week and a 2.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.1 percent, up […]
Cliffs Natural Resources’ supply agreement with ArcelorMittal “put the final nail in the coffin of Essar Steel Minnesota.” That is the opinion of Star Tribune columnist, Lee Schafer. Schafer has a point, with Cliffs gobbling up Northern steel mill contracts, Essar will have no customers even if it is able to pull itself out of […]
Last week Steel Market Update advised our readers that we were considering removing the Comparison Price Indices article from our newsletter. The index has more value, in our opinion, when there is a wider array of data points available to be compared. We publish only the indices where we have permission to do so. Over […]
There is a big difference between the settlement prices in the Midwest versus those on the East Coast. Ferrous scrap prices in the Chicago area saw shredded scrap drop by $30 per gross ton, cuts (obsolete scrap) was down $20 per ton while prime grades (bundles and busheling) went sideways. In the Detroit numbers shredded […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave 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. […]
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 April 2016 was 8,634,917 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. April apparent […]
April steel exports totaled 794,536 net tons (720,792 metric tons), up 2.5 percent over March but down 5.9 percent from April 2015. Total April figures are above the thee month moving average (average of February, March, and April 2016 figures) but below the twelve month moving average (average of April 2015 through April 2016 data). […]
Cliffs Natural Resources announced today that it will restart its United Taconite mining facility in August. The restart was originally scheduled for October but will occur two months early due to additional pellet tonnage ordered by US Steel Canada. Cliffs is revising its 2016 sales volume guidance to 18 million tonnes from 17.5 million tonnes. […]
Licensed data for May was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on June 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 May were […]
Flat rolled prices are beginning to stabilize as a number of mills are not taking orders at this time and those that are are holding fairly firm at where they were a week ago. Our benchmark hot rolled average rose by $5 per ton while cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume averages remained unchanged. When we […]
For many years, SMU publisher John Packard sold ultra light gauge galvanized steels (.019”-.010”) into the furnace pipe manufacturers across the United States and Canada. This product is one that is not championed by the domestic steel industry as the domestic steel mills would rather run thicker steels (more tonnage per hour through their mills) […]
For the week ending June 4, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,760,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.8 percent decrease over the previous week, but a 0.9 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 75.3 percent, down […]