Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for December. Based on the data through the first 15 days of the month it appears December imports will be very similar to November. We remind our readers that license data this early in the month should be taken with a grain […]
When Steel Market Update (SMU) reviews pricing we take a number of items into account. We look at the transaction prices that buyers report to us as having been made within the past few days. We look at the offers to sell being made by the mills as well as the offers to buy being […]
SMU was advised over the weekend that Nucor had raised spot plate pricing by $30 per ton. On Monday, SSAB followed the Nucor lead by providing a letter to their customers advising them, “Please be advised that effective immediately SSAB Americas is raising the transaction price for all non-contract As-Rolled Mill Plate, Cut-To-Length Plate >72”, […]
The following article is one that is produced for our Premium level members once we release the latest Imports by Product, Port & Country data into our website. In this article we want to give you a little feel for the data. Once you start reviewing imports by port you can begin to ask questions […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of October 2015 was 8,868,427 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. October supply […]
For the week ending December 12, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,536,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent decrease over the previous week and a 14.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 64.2 percent, down […]
This report is a detailed drill down into imports of hot band through October, beginning with the big picture and ending with exactly what came into a region of significance to your business and where it came from. SMU has developed a series of reports that cover hot rolled, cold rolled, HDG, other metallic coated […]
On Friday Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA followed the lead of NLMK USA, Northstar Bluescope and AK Steel by announcing steel price increases on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized coated steels. Nucor sent a letter to their customers advising them that base prices on new orders would increase by a minimum of $40 per ton […]
We are already seeing some signs of the “turn” as the flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw very little movement this past week. Both SMU and Platts saw hot rolled pricing as stable while CRU was down $5 per ton (SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this past week). Our average was […]
Two domestic mills made price moves on Wednesday as NLMK USA and then AK Steel came out with price increases on flat rolled steel. The NLMK announcement did not reference specific base price levels while the AK Steel announcement did. NLMK USA was the first to announce, which they did in an letter to their […]
The rumblings of a price increase have been building for a couple of weeks now as mills like SDI (Butler) and Nucor (Berkeley) have been quietly asking for higher steel prices from their customers prior to any announcements being made. On Tuesday we traded emails with a service center executive who told us, “While rumblings […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: The stock market is taking a […]
In the first ten months of this year bulk scrap exports were 10,889,000 tonnes for an annual rate of 14,519,000 tonnes, down by 15.6 percent from the first ten months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages (3MMA) for 2015 and on the annual monthly average […]
As the domestic mills announce price increases in the hopes of changing market momentum, one of the negatives is the spot price of iron ore in China (the largest seaborne ore buyer). Iron ore prices have been collapsing for the past two years with 62% Fe fines reaching $37.5/dmt today (TSI data). As you can […]
The USW met with workers at Cliffs Natural Resources in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to discuss warnings by the company of potential increases in health care premiums for retirees. A letter sent to retired workers by Cliffs in November contained rate increases that the USW believes to be incorrectly calculated. The union has not been able […]
The service centers with whom we communicated over the past few days are talking about the “whispers” of a possible price increase announcement. A number have told SMU that mills like SDI Butler and Nucor Berkeley are asking for higher spot prices than what was available two weeks ago. A service center executive told us, […]
For the week ending December 5, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,553,000 net tons of raw steel, a 4.4 percent increase over the previous week but a 14.3 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 65.0 percent, up […]
Licensed data for November was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on December 4th. 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 November […]
Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for November and on Friday of this past week they also released Final Census data for the month of October. The final October number was just over 3.0 million net tons while the license data for November appears will be 400,000 less […]
Chinese exported 101.7 million metric tons, or 112 million short tons, of steel in the first 11 months of 2015, according to customs data reported by Bloomberg. Exports increased by 22 percent year over year, almost as much as the total annual capacity of U.S. steel mills of 120 million tons. As China’s economic slowdown […]
Ferrous scrap prices are one of the key indicators to watch as the market determines if we have reached the bottom in the slide in flat rolled prices and, if prices will rebound from here. The thought process has been that a move higher in scrap will help change the psychology of the market and […]
Over the past few weeks we have seen major movement in flat rolled steel prices. The question now is have we seen the end of the major moves lower (some suggest hot rolled has a way to go since lead times are not yet into January at most mills) or do we have a way […]
Essar Steel Minnesota met a deadline set by Governor Mark Dayton to repay $66 million in incentives owed the state after failing to complete a $1.9 billion integrated iron ore-to-steel mill. The governor gave Essar a deadline of Friday, December 4, to make payments to vendors on the project and provide assurances that future debts […]
Steel Market Update continues to speak with both buyers and sellers of steel on a daily basis. As this week has worn on, we uncovered a number of price points below what we reported on Tuesday. We feel that we need to advise our readers of our findings and adjust the lower end of our […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data collected through December 1st for the month of November. Based on license data (which can vary from the final census numbers) November foreign steel imports should be approximately 2.5 million net tons. If correct, this would be the lowest level seen since December 2013 which was the […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
The frustration is beginning to build in the voices of some of the steel buyers as they deal with continuing depreciating flat rolled steel inventories. Prices have been falling since the middle of May 2015 when prices hit a cycle peak of $685 per ton ($34.25/cwt). With our latest adjustment to our hot rolled coil […]
For the week ending November 28, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,487,000 net tons of raw steel, a 4.8 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 62.2 percent, down […]
Holiday weeks tend to be “quiet” when it comes to steel price movement but, according to the flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update, last week was an anomaly. SMU saw the market as being relatively stable with either no movement or small adjustments of $5 per ton on hot rolled and hot […]
Steel imports in October accelerated from September but were down by one-third from year ago levels, according to the latest import data analysis from the American Institute for International Steel. The press release from AIIS follows. Falls Church, VA. December 1, 2015. Steel imports increased in October, following two months of sharp declines. The United […]