The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the final census data for foreign steel imports for the month of November. November imports were 2,453,593 net tons (not metric tons as we have already made the conversion from the US DOC charts) which is significantly below both the 3 month and 12 month moving averages (see table […]
Coal companies have been struggling with regulation changes and decreasing demand over the past several years. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, coal production fell 10 percent in 2015 to its lowest level since 1986. Coal prices have dropped 35 percent in just the past two years. The result has been bankruptcy restructuring proceedings […]
SMU has developed a series of reports that cover hot rolled, cold rolled, HDG, other metallic coated, coiled plate and semi-finished slabs. These reports are a detailed drill down into tons by source country and port of entry which will enable you to determine exactly what is going on in your area for whichever product […]
We are pleased to have Philip Hoffman, Chairman & CEO of Hoffman Iron & Steel provide us his unique insights on both the domestic and international scrap markets as well as his forecast for where international and domestic scrap prices will be headed in the next month or two (and why). As most are aware, […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our early January 2016 flat rolled steel market analysis. Our Premium level customers got access to the results of our queries in the form of a Power Point presentation which puts the results into a historical context. One of the unique line of questions asked were related to the […]
We are seeing small adjustments higher in hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized pricing based on what our index, along with that of Platts, reported this past week. Hot rolled averages range from a low of $380 per ton (SMU) to $390 per ton (Platts). Both indices were up, resulting in our CPI average for […]
In the first eleven months of 2015 bulk scrap exports were 11,762,000 tonnes for an annual rate of 12,831,000 tonnes, down by 17.5 percent from the first eleven months of 2014. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages (3MMA) for 2015 and on the annual monthly average for previous […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Assisting Andre with tonight’s article is Jack Marshall also associated with CrunchRisk. Here is how Andre and Jack saw trading […]
The scrap markets are still sorting themselves out as the domestic steel mills and dealers jostle for position with the dealers looking like they will be the victors in this go-around for January deliveries. We are hearing early trades in Chicago as being done at up $20 per ton with one of our sources telling […]
Licensed data for December was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on January 5th. At SMU we perform a detailed analysis of this data, an explanation of our methodology is given at the end of this write up. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of December […]
The following article is by contributing writer Damon Sun of Daido International. The Asian markets were anticipating the elimination of China’s export tax rebate, which has not happened yet. Likely, it will not happen. Anticipation of the elimination of China’s export tax rebate would have an impact of 9-13 percent increase in China’s exports of […]
We saw very modest movement in flat rolled steel prices since we last reported prices on Tuesday, December 29th. With most buyers and steel mill commercial people on holiday our new flat rolled market analysis picked up some movement at the upper end of our range in hot rolled, a reduction of the lower end […]
When SMU was at the recent HARDI conference in December we remember that many of the executives were not interested in taking inventory positions as they felt there still could be more room to fall. From our perspective, looking at prices from a historical perspective, the domestic mills had already suffered lower prices than what […]
For the week ending January 2, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,440,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent decrease over the previous week and a 19.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 60.2 percent, down […]
The various indexes followed by Steel Market Update each produced new prices this past week. There was minimal price movement due to the Christmas and end of the year holidays which impacted the number of actual transactions occurring between the steel mills and their customers. Both Platts and Steel Market Update kept prices unchanged compared […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of November 2015. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent for the […]
This is normally the week when many buyers (and sellers) of steel tend to take an extended holiday and this year is no exception. Without a large number of price points to reference we have chosen to keep our prices in line with what we reported this past week. Here is how we see spot […]
For the week ending December 26, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,456,000 net tons of raw steel, a 4.4 percent decrease over the previous week and a 18.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 60.9 percent, down […]
Steel Market Update and Platts both saw hot rolled prices as rising modestly by the end of last week. Platts is now $12.5 per ton higher than SMU as we are still getting reports of prices struggling to move higher on HRC. SteelBenchmarker did not report pricing this past week as they only report twice […]
The US Department of Commerce released the latest license data regarding foreign steel imports into the United States for the month of December 2015. Based on licenses data December is trending toward the low 2 million net tons to as much as 2.6 million net tons. However, we have noticed that the trend recently has […]
Based on the Preliminary License Data recently released by the U.S. Department of Commerce, foreign steel imports for the month of November were 2,350,942 net tons. This is the lowest total seen for any month since December 2011 when 2,064,143 net tons were reported. November 2015 imports were 1,343,207 tons less than November 2014 when […]
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton gave Essar Steel Minnesota a week to agree to a terms of proposal to repay $66 million in loans. Essar received the loans in 2004 in return for promises to build a $1.9 billion iron ore processing plant and steel mill in Nashwauk, Minn. The taconite plant is still under construction […]
Steel Market Update is seeing prices as being modestly higher than they were both two weeks ago as well as last week. On average, cold rolled and coated steels have the most strength with lead times on many of these products having extended into February (and some coated into March) at most of the mills […]
Scrap dealers are optimistic that ferrous scrap prices have bottomed in all regions of the country and will rise as we move into negotiations for the month of January. A rising scrap market is a harbinger of good things for the steel mills as they attempt to collect the increases already announced and perhaps add […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released import license data through the 22nd of December. The data continues to show the trend to be similar to that of November when approximately 2.7 million net tons of foreign steel were exported to the United States. In the graphic below we have highlighted hot rolled (trending lower), cold […]
For the week ending December 19, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,523,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.8 percent decrease over the previous week and a 15.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 63.7 percent, down […]
The following article is normally produced for our Premium level members, but we wanted to share it with our Executive level members as we think it is important and interesting as the world is flooded with excess steel capacity. If you find this article interesting you may be interested in upgrading your membership from Executive […]
We are at the point of the turn and watching how quickly each index reports the change. From Steel Market Update’s view, we saw all flat rolled products pricing rising this past week and we expect most, if not all, of the price increase announcements made to be collected by the domestic steel mills and […]
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 […]
On July 28, 2015 the U.S. steel mills filed antidumping and countervailing duty trade suits on cold rolled steels against China, Brazil, Russia, India and Korea. Of the countries named, China was by far the largest exporter of cold rolled steel to the United States and the country with the biggest target on its back. […]