For the week ending August 8, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,756,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.2 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.4 percent, down […]
Over the past two months the U.S. steel industry has filed antidumping petitions on corrosion resistant (coated steels like galvanized and Galvalume) and cold rolled steels. The rumor mill has been flush with talk that a hot rolled suit will be announced as early as this week. What will the impact be on flat rolled […]
Flat rolled steel prices barely moved this past week according to the steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Hot rolled price averaged $466 per ton with SMU and Platts at $465 and CRU at $467 per ton. Cold rolled was one product where we saw a split between SMU ($580), Platts ($585) and […]
Over the weekend we received further updates on the status of the ferrous scrap markets in the United States. We learned that US Steel Granite City had no scrap buys in July and we are hearing that they are passing on offers that are $30 to $45 per gross ton lower than their last buys […]
In the first six months of this year bulk scrap exports were 6,893,000 metric tonnes for an annual rate of 13,786,000 tonnes, down by 9.1 percent from the first six months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly […]
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. […]
Scrap prices are falling across the country as the August numbers begin to settle. In most regions we are seeing prices down $20 to $30 per gross ton. However, depending on the starting point, numbers are down more than $30. The other development is the numbers in the South are now more in line with […]
The following report was produced by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) regarding U.S. steel exports out of the United States to other countries. At the end of the AIIS press release is a table produced by Steel Market Update with an analysis of both total and flat rolled steel exports. Falls Church, VA. […]
Licensed data for July was updated on August 4th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. Steel Market Update publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to […]
Another week has gone by and flat rolled steel prices have barely budged. This even after the domestic steel mills have filed two trade suits (coated an cold rolled). The expectation is that prices will rise sometime in the future but at the moment there appears to be plenty of inventory and lead times continue […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the month of July. Based on the just released data it appears July imports will be approximately 200,000 net tons higher than what was received during the month of June. However, when looking at imports from a 3 month moving average and […]
For the week ending August 1, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,760,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.1 percent increase over the previous week but a 8.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.6 percent, up […]
Benchmark hot rolled slip a little this past week according to Steel Market Update and CRU, while Platts kept their hot rolled number the same (they haven’t moved in over a month). SteelBenchmarker reported prices and their hot rolled number was up $4 per ton. When all of that was said and done the average […]
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 […]
Trading has not yet begun but ferrous scrap dealers are expecting another move lower in the scrap markets. Many are pointing to prices moving lower by $20 per gross ton or more depending on the markets. We are hearing that the South may be the weakest markets with projections of prices moving lower by $20 […]
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: Well we did indeed put in […]
The following is a “Letter to the Editor” received from David Phelps, the immediate past president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): I feel obliged to comment on the subject of the new trade cases against CR. First of all, they are ostensibly to protect American jobs and of course, profits and production […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) published our hot rolled range as remaining the same as the prior week at $450-$480 per ton. We continued to collect data as the week has progressed and we received a number of data points at $440 for the low end of the range. We are adjusting our hot rolled price […]
Cliffs Natural Resources reported a net income of $60 million for second quarter, managing a profit in the face of a challenging raw materials environment. Second quarter sales fell 33 percent on weak iron ore prices for total of $498 million, compared to $748 million in Q2 2014. CEO Lourenco Goncalves addressed the “single biggest […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of June 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 […]
In light of the antidumping suit which was filed by five domestic steel mills earlier today (or last night if you received the USS email), we wanted to do some analysis for our readers and take a look at the eight countries named and their participation in the CRC market. As you can see by […]
“My offers haven’t changed much in the past 60-90 days,” is what one Texas based distributor told SMU when asked about spot pricing this week. “Still lackluster demand, no change in mill lead times and oil is still below 50. Not much reason for a change unless core demand improves….” At the opposite spectrum we […]
For the week ending July 25, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,740,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices saw little movement this past week in benchmark hot rolled but, we did see some cracks in the “shadow” effect as the spreads between CRU and the other indexes started to widen. These small gyrations in the numbers in any one week may be due to what is being collected and […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has discussed with our readers, on many occasions, that there are three kinds of numbers coming out of the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding steel imports on a monthly basis. First, there are the license data requests which are published every Tuesday evening after 5 PM ET. License data is 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. […]
A unfair trade case was filed by US pipe and tube producers on Tuesday against makers and exporters of heavy-walled rectangular steel pipes and tubes from South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. The product in question is commonly called “structural tubing” and is used in construction, transportation and farm applications. The alleged dumping margins filed by […]
Global steel production in 12 months through June totaled 1.622 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.2 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization on a three month moving average, (3MMA) basis was 71.6 percent, down from 72 percent in three months through May. China accounted for 50.8 percent of global production in June. Asia as a whole, […]
We found a little bit of weakening in our price ranges on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized while Galvalume was slightly higher. We do not attribute any change in momentum with the numbers. We are of the opinion that the changes were related to the collection of data this week (with more emphasis on […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated July license data as of 5 PM today (Tuesday, July 21st). At the moment, the license data is “suggesting” that July imports will exceed those of June (June had 22 days and July has 23 days) by 100,000 to 200,000 tons. The daily license request rate for July is […]