March steel exports totaled 896,027 net tons (812,863 metric tons), up 2.0 percent over February but down 13.8 percent from March 2014. Total March figures are below both the thee month moving average (3MMA, average of January 2015 through March 2015 figures) and the twelve month moving average (12MMA, average of April 2014 through March […]
Licensed data for April was updated on May 5th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU 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 our […]
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 March 2015 is 9,575,903 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. March supply […]
Late last week I asked the vice president of one of the steel mills which had announced price increases if they were indeed collecting higher prices and we received a one word response “Yep.” Earlier today we spoke with a conversion mill about the status of their pricing and they provided a more descriptive look […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released Final Census Data for the month of March. The final total of foreign steel imported into the United States during the month was 3,615,960 net tons. This is a very small decrease from the 3.7 million tons received during the month of February but is well below the 3.9 […]
For the week ending May 2, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,712,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.3 percent increase over the previous week but a 7.0 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.4 percent, up […]
Magnetation, an iron ore concentrate and pellet producer, announced it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it undergoes reorganization. The company has received a commitment for $135 million in debtor-in-possession financing from certain holders of Senior Secured Notes that will support the business while it reorganizes. Magnetation said it will continue to pay […]
On May 1, Nucor Corp. and SSAB Americas filed a joint request asking the Department of Commerce to find that Chinese producers of cut-to-length (CTL) steel plate are circumventing the antidumping order on CTL plate from China. According to documents submitted to the DOC, Chinese plate producers are adding small amounts of alloys, such as […]
All of the domestic steel mills located east of the Rockies (except U.S. Steel) made flat rolled price increase announcements this past week. The first steel index to note an upward move in pricing was Platts where by the end of this past week had taken their hot rolled index up $5 per ton from […]
Despite significant decreases in iron ore, steel, and metallurgical coal pricing, Cliffs Natural Resources, Inc. was able to achieve revenue of $446 million (excluding North American Coal) with adjusted EBITDA of $94 million. US iron ore shipments of 2.9 million tons were less than the 4 million anticipated, but in the US iron ore business […]
During the latest slew of earnings conference calls by the domestic steel mills, analysts were relentless in their pursuit of information regarding trade cases which would conceivably impact the flow of imported steel into the United States. The steel mill CEO’s and other mill executives associated with the conference calls were more than willing to […]
There are always two sides to any story. The domestic steel mill view is the influx of foreign steel is due to illegal dumping by the companies or countries exporting steel to the United States. The manufacturing companies who are benefiting from the lower priced imports (and their impact on domestic steel prices) have a […]
Scrap dealers are expecting sideways pricing as we enter the month of May and negotiations with the various steel mills. Our sources are advising SMU that the weakest area continues to be the Midwest (Indiana and Ohio Valley) while the East and South have seen demand strengthening. Even though the Midwest is the weakest area […]
The spread between world hot rolled export pricing and that of the domestic average here in the United States continues to be reduced from what we were measuring a couple of months ago. This analysis is based on our review of world export prices and the hot rolled index produced by SMU earlier this week. […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of March 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 […]
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 S&P has retraced from its […]
The March AIIS imports report shows steel imports falling for the second month in a row. Imports from South Korea rebounded 16.6 percent from February. The AISI report in its entirety follows: Falls Church, VA. April 29, 2015. Steel imports fell for the second straight month in March – and the fourth of the last […]
Late on Monday, ArcelorMittal sales people began informing their customers by email of their intention to raise flat rolled steel prices by $20 per ton ($1.00/cwt). The increase was to be effective with orders taken for June production and beyond. In an email seen by Steel Market Update, ArcelorMittal explained their reasoning for taking prices […]
Late last week one of the smaller mills (North Star Bluescope) not known to cold rolled and galvanized buyers since they only produce hot rolled coils, began moving spot prices higher. One of NS customers advised us toward the end of the week that the mill was looking for $465 per ton ($23.25/cwt) for new […]
The domestic mills were beginning to make moves late last week to increase steel prices. Those efforts accelerated earlier today with the announcements out of ArcelorMittal USA (internal memo), Nucor (verbal & later in a letter to their customers), NLMK USA (letter to customers). These moves have, at least temporarily, halted the slide in flat […]
When we speak with the domestic steel mills one of the things we hear from them is that their order books have improved over the last three weeks. The weekly raw steel production report provided by the AISI is also catching this change in ordering and production patterns. For the week ending April 25, 2015, […]
Steel Market Update reviews the weekly steel import license data as reported by the US Department of Commerce. License data can be quite volatile and we only use the reports as a way of evaluating any changes in tonnage or product trends. The closer we get to the end of the month the better the […]
Service centers and wholesalers are making no bones about it – it is time for the steel mills to raise steel prices. A good example was comments made by incoming Reliance Steel & Aluminum CEO, Gregg Mollins during last week’s earnings conference call: ” I think personally we expect a price increase in the not […]
The slippage in flat rolled steel prices continued this past week but we are seeing signs that the end to the slide “may” be close. Hot rolled prices dropped $3 (SMU) to $5 (Platts and CRU) per ton with only $1 separating the indexes from one another. We normally see the indexes tightening up the […]
On Friday of this past week the U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) reported Preliminary License Data for steel imports into the United States. March steel imports (all products) were reported to be 3,587,949 net tons. This is down from the 3.7 million tons reported for February and below both the twelve month and three […]
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 signs of a tightening Fed […]
With Nucor CEO John Ferriola commenting today about the surge in steel plate imports over the last two months into the United States, Steel Market Update thought we would do a piece showing plate imports over the last few years and how they compare to recent levels. The monthly average import rate of plate in […]
We saw a mixed market for flat rolled steel prices this past week with some items moving lower and one (cold rolled) slightly higher than what we reported one week ago. Steel Market Update, which continues to have our Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral, saw the lower end of hot rolled as being $5 per […]
As much as the steel industry would like to see foreign steel imports shrinking so far in April, that is not the case. Based on steel import license data through Tuesday, April 23rd, imports are on pace to come close to repeating March’s 3.7 million tons. At this point in time Steel Market Update believes […]
Global steel production in 12 months through March totaled 1.626 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.2 billion tonnes which yields a utilization for the 12 month period of 73.9 percent. China accounted for 50.3 percent of global production in March. Asia as a whole, including India, accounted for 68.3 percent of global production. Production […]