As we approach the end of January the expectation is for the domestic steel mills to cancel any remaining ferrous scrap orders that the yards have been unable to ship due to the weather, shortage of trucks or rail cars or just due to the dealer(s) being unable to complete the order on time. The […]
Steel buyers reported a mixed bag this week with some mills quoting extremely long lead times (hot rolled at 6-8 weeks) while others were still willing to discuss pricing in early February if a reasonable order was connected to the competitive quotation. One service center executive told us about mill lead times, “USS is in […]
David Phelps warned our readers not to put too much stock in the U.S. Department of Commerce license data, which he felt could be very misleading. Our initial forecast for January steel imports produced through the aid of the import license data from the 14th and again on the 21st of January indicated a possible […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their final raw steel production numbers for the month of December 2013. 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 […]
For the week ending January 25, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,824,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.7 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.1 […]
Steel buyers are confiding in Steel Market Update and have been telling us that the tightness in cold rolled spot prices, which this past week SMU had as being $760-$820 per ton ($38.00/cwt-$41.00/cwt), is partially due to the extended lead times at AK Steel. According to steel buyers, AK Steel had to deal with “the […]
For the first time in what seems like forever, the four indexes followed by Steel Market Update, as well as our own, have benchmark hot rolled coil at the same average during the same week. Hot rolled coil was reported by all indexes this past week at $675 per ton ($33.75/cwt). The similarities stopped there, […]
January 24th 2014. The Turkish Lira is in freefall. What does this mean for the US ferrous scrap industry? This is a hard question to answer because we don’t know what we don’t know. What we do know is that the Turkish Lira has declined by 20.1% against the US $ in the last 12 […]
The market has taken a decidedly bearish tone this week as many feel the first cracks in the physical market are starting to appear. While prices have come off around $5 down the forward curve, the weight is strongly on the offer side, with few buyers present. The threat of imports and decreasing raw material […]
HSBC Holdings and Markit released the preliminary (flash) Purchasing Managers’ Index this morning. The reading of 49.6 disappointed the financial markets as any reading below 50.0 indicates the Chinese manufacturing economy is contracting. Meanwhile, world benchmark iron ore spot prices have been falling over the past few weeks with The Steel Index (TSI) reporting 62% […]
HSBC Holdings and Markit released the preliminary (flash) Purchasing Managers’ Index this morning. The reading of 49.6 disappointed the financial markets as any reading below 50.0 indicates the Chinese manufacturing economy is contracting. Meanwhile, world benchmark iron ore spot prices have been falling over the past few weeks with The Steel Index (TSI) reporting 62% […]
The busheling scrap market is starting to take shape, though it is still early in the month. Initial sentiment suggests that the market for prime scrap may be down around $20 / gt. With weakness in the export market as Turkish corruption problems, the weakening Lira and soft economy have prevented imports, additional material should […]
Flat rolled steel prices (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized & Galvalume steels) were mixed this week according to our ongoing flat rolled market survey as well as direct contacts with steel buyers. Prices were mixed as we saw slight improvement in hot rolled prices with an extension of the range. However, most of the price […]
One of our readers asked us on Monday morning, why the discrepancies between the CRU, Platts and SMU indices? During the discussion we were reminded that the discrepancies did not always exist. We pulled up a graph with the three hot rolled index price points from the three indexes and as you can see the […]
Every Tuesday the U.S. Department of Commerce releases their latest steel import licensing data for the current month. Based on data collected through the 21st of January (today) total steel imports (all products) are forecast to be 3.2 million net tons for the month of January. This is slightly lower than the 3.3 million tons […]
Essar officials are working to find additional financing for the $1.7 billion Essar Steel Minnesota taconite plant under construction in Nashwauk, Minn. Construction of the plant has slowed with workers on the job reduced by more than half, down from an average of 150-200 to 74, according to reports by the Duluth News Tribune. The […]
For the week ending January 18, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,836,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.3 percent increase over the previous week and a 0.2 percent increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.6 […]
Industrial production and manufacturing capacity utilization, December 2013. Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 101.76 for December; this was the first month for the index to exceed the pre-recession peak of September 2007. The three month moving average (3MMA) at 101.21 was […]
Financial Markets: The equities markets have stabilized after their reaction to the poor jobs number in December last week. The S+P closed at 1836 today, exactly 3 points higher than where I reported it last week. We are likely headed higher as it will take a lot more than a poor jobs report to scare […]
There has been much written and said about the projected “surge” of imported steel expected to hit the United States over the next few months. Many of the steel analysts believe the incoming foreign steel will help dampened flat rolled steel prices which peaked during the first week of January at $680 per ton ($34.00/cwt) […]
Apparent supply is defined as domestic mill shipments to domestic locations plus imports. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce. The three month moving average of the total tonnage of sheet and strip supply was 4,436,772 tons per month in the period September through November. This was up by […]
Scrap exports continued their lack luster performance in November declining for the third straight month to 1,236,000 tonnes. Total exports YTD through November 16,904,000 tonnes down from 19,753,000 tonnes in the first 11 months of last year, a decline of 14.4 percent. The largest decline in November was shipments to Turkey, down by 72,000 tonnes […]
Flat rolled steel prices began to slip this week as some short term weakness was seen in domestic mill order books and lead times. Benchmark hot rolled is perhaps the weakest product based on our discussions with buyers around the eastern half of the United States and into Canada. The biggest reason behind the slippage […]
November prepainted flat rolled imports decreased over October, especially on galvanized and Galvalume products. The four prepainted products tracked by SMU fell a combined 21,941 net tons (NT) or 49.7 percent over the previous month. Compared to the same month one year ago, prepainted imports were down 30.2 percent on average for select products. As […]
For the week ending January 11, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,830,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 0.4 percent increase over the previous week but a 0.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 76.4 […]
Apparent steel supply for November was 8,592,683 net tons (NT), a 1.46 percent increase compared to the same month one year ago. This was due to a slight increase in domestic shipments and a minor decrease in exports. The net trade balance from the difference between imports and exports was a surplus of 1,653,365 net […]
In the 12 months through November the US imported 29,129,427 tons of all steel products including semi finished, exported 11,594,574 tons for a net steel trade deficit of 17,534,853 tons. The major net importer was Brazil with 3,591,401 tons. Canada and Mexico both imported more from the US than they exported to the US resulting […]
Ferrous scrap prices, which prior to the beginning of negotiations for the month of January were forecast to rise by $20 to $50 per gross ton, actually began shrinking as this past week progressed. Early settlements ranged from $10 on prime grades to $15-$25 per gross ton on obsolete and shredded scrap. As the week […]
November steel export data indicates total US steel exports were 939,185 net tons (NT) for the month of November 2013, the lowest levels seen since December 2010 when exports were 934,471 NT. Total November steel trade to countries outside of the United States is down 17.1 percent compared to October levels and down 6.0 percent […]
Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC has the duties of outlining the hot rolled futures and busheling scrap futures markets for our readers (as well as taking a look at the financial markets, iron ore and commodities in general): On the March S+P future we closed at 1833, this is up from the 1806 level […]