Apparent steel supply for October 2014 was 10,954,832 net tons, the highest monthly figure we have seen since the beginning of the Great Recession. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic shipments and finished US imports and subtracting total US exports. October supply represents a 1,509,671 ton or 16.0 percent increase compared to the […]
In a preliminary determination, the U.S. Department of Commerce found that Mexican steel pipe producer Productos Laminados de Monterrey sold pipe below normal value during the period of review, August 1, 2012 through July 31, 2013. Originally eight Mexican companies were reviewed by the DOC for possible dumping of circular welded non-alloy steel pipe into […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode this week as buyers reported an expansion of discounted offers coupled with short mill lead times. Many steel buyers are telling Steel Market Update that their inventories are relatively high, there are new foreign offers out there at “good” prices and that they can sit back and wait […]
Total October steel imports were recently finalized by the US Department of Commerce at 4,441,271 net tons (4,029,058 metric tons), surpassing the previous high of 4,417,811 tons in August 1998. October had been on pace to be a high tonnage month, but previous preliminary data figures were a few thousand tons shy of breaking the […]
October steel exports totaled 1,010,089 net tons (916,338 metric tons), down 2.3 percent over September and down 10.9 percent from October 2013 (all products). Cut plate exports declined 16.1 percent from September to October to 108,527 tons, but were up 0.6 percent compared to levels one year prior. Exports of coiled plate were 39,950 tons in […]
October ferrous scrap exports totaled 1,473,856 net tons (1,337,061 metric tons) with Turkey, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, and Saudi Arabia being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 72.4 percent of all scrap exports. Total October ferrous scrap exports were 14.9 percent higher than previous month and 1.5 […]
In a complicated appeals decision on Monday, the World Trade Organization reversed the majority of a July ruling against India that said US duties had wrongly penalized India for subsidizing steel imports of pipe produced by Tata Steel. The decision, however, also admonished the US for breaking Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) rules and called […]
For the week ending December 6, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,877,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 2.3 percent increase over the previous week and a 5.0 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.0 […]
Hot rolled prices dropped on all the indexes which reported new pricing this past week. Steel Market Update was down $10 per ton to $620 per ton with CRU ($623) and Platts ($625) coming very close to the SMU number. SteelBenchmarker did not report new pricing this past week as they only report HRC prices […]
Ports around the U.S. report steel shipments continue to be strong but congestion at the terminals remains a problem. In the Port of New Orleans iron and steel imports totaled 2.2 million tons in the first eight months of this year—up 84.8 percent from the same period in 2013. “We don’t have November numbers as […]
Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, spoke to the Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) conference this afternoon. Many of the HARDI wholesalers and associated companies are involved with galvanized sheet and coil steels. As SMU prepared to speak to the group we realized that many times the industry references benchmark hot rolled prices and […]
One of the biggest issues that has been holding the domestic steel mill lead times (and prices) in check during calendar year 2014 is the amount of foreign steel coming into the United States. SMU recently reported the U.S. received 4.4 million net tons of imports during the month of October and license data is […]
The following article on the hot rolled futures market comes to SMU from contributing writer Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading for Kataman Metals. Hot rolled coil futures have been quite inactive the past week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. As activity picks back up, it appears the next move will be lower. The forward […]
With buying prices down by approximately $60 per ton over the past two months, we are seeing a lack of feedstock for shredded scrap across the country. The net result is shredded scrap prices are up $5 to $10 per gross ton compared to where they were in November in most regions east of the […]
Flat rolled steel prices began slipping once again as our benchmark hot rolled average broke through the $630 mark for the first time since the middle of March. The new average is now at the lowest level for the calendar year (tied with mid-March) and is poised to set a new low point for the […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data through today, December 2, 2015. Based on the latest data, there were 3,938,330 net tons of steel import license requests for the month of November. This does not mean that the U.S. actually received 3.9 million tons of steel imports during the month of November, but it […]
For the week ending November 29, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,835,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 2.5 percent decrease over the previous week but a 0.5 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.3 […]
Steel Market Update has written a number of articles about the Keystone Pipeline. The pipeline has not been completed due to politics and environmental issues. We received an article from Peter Brebach, CEO of Iron Angels of Colorado which takes a look at the other side of the issue from an economic and environmental perspective: […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other flat rolled steel indexes reported benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down $5-$9 per ton this past week. Our average also declined by $5 per ton and now sits at $637 per ton. With at least one mill offering spot hot rolled at, or below, $600 […]
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) determined on Wednesday that there is reasonable indication that the US steel industry is materially injured by import of welded line pipe from Korea and Turkey. The affirmative vote means the countervailing and antidumping investigation will proceed with a preliminary CV determination due on or about January 9, 2015, […]
The following is a “hypothetical” calculation of the spread between world hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled prices. SMU compares the world hot rolled export price with hypothetical adders for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. This is then compared to the spot (FOB Mill) domestic hot rolled price using the SMU Hot […]
It has been a very quiet week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the U.S. on Thursday. A number of service centers advised SMU that the number of inquiries had dramatically fallen off and there isn’t much need to buy steel at this time. The question isn’t so much where are prices this week […]
Preliminary October import figures show October as the second highest month in the 17 years worth of history we have at SMU. October steel imports were the highest figure since August 1998 when total imports were 4,417,811 net tons. We also address November 2014 imports which we believe will be approximately 3.7-3.8 million net tons […]
For the week ending November 22, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,882,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.5 percent increase over the previous week and a 3.1 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 78.2 […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final raw steel production estimates for the month of October 2014. This estimation is different than the weekly raw steel production as it is based on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. 50 percent for the weekly estimates. Total raw steel production for the […]
We ended the article above talking about the tight range we have seen on hot rolled coil over the past 12 months. Total price movement from low to high during that time period has been $65 per ton. The question is, will U.S. hot rolled coil prices break through the low of the past 12 […]
Flat rolled steel prices, as reported by Steel Market Update, Platts, CRU this past week (SteelBenchmarker did not report last week) had mixed results. CRU and SMU have hot rolled prices at $634 and $635 respectively. Platts remains stuck at $640 as they have been for a number of weeks now. SteelBenchmarker did not report […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported steel import license data through the 18th of November a little earlier this week. We have done an analysis of the license data and have compared it to previous months to see if we can see any similarities in the numbers. The daily average rate for licenses is shown […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
On October 28, 2014 AK Steel announced a $20 per ton ($1.00/cwt) price increase on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steels. Shortly after, ArcelorMittal and then Nucor advised their customers of specific base price levels on new spot flat rolled orders. Hot rolled was to be offered at $33.00/cwt ($660 per ton or higher) […]