Nucor Corp. announced today that it will expand its Vulcraft/Verco Group into Canada. The new production facility, Vulcraft Canada, Inc., will be located near Hamilton, Ontario and will serve the Central and Eastern markets. The facility will produce steel joists, joist girders, and decking. Product fabrication is expected to begin later this year. “We are […]
AM Castle reported a net loss of $44.8 million for first quarter 2016. Net sales were down 13.1 percent year over year to $163.8 million. A significant portion of sales, $27.1 million, were from the liquidation of the company’s energy related inventory from the recent closure of the Houston and Edmonton facilities. Excluding this, net […]
No one was injured in an explosion and fires related to the explosion in one of the two electric arc furnaces at the North Star BlueScope plant in Ohio on Saturday. North Star BlueScope vice president, Mike Hanson, reported to The Blade newspaper that shortly after 4 PM there was an explosion in one of […]
ArcelorMittal narrowed its losses in first quarter 2015 to $416 million from $728 million a year ago. Total steel shipments for the company were 21.5 million tonnes. “Clearly, the market conditions have improved since we reported full year results in early February. Rising steel prices in China have supported prices globally and this has been […]
Ryerson Holding Corporation reported net income of $13.5 million for the first quarter of 2016, compared to a loss of $2.5 million for the first quarter of 2015. Revenues were $702.6 million for the first quarter of 2016, down 19.1 percent from the year-ago period due to a 19.4 percent decline in the average selling […]
Motions to release details of the “secret deal” between US Steel and the Canadian government were again rejected by the judge presiding over the US Steel Canada restructuring process. Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel said on Wednesday that petitioners for the release have not sufficiently proven that they need the details of the agreement, although he admitted […]
Steel Market Update received a number of comments regarding our “Tsunami” article published in Sunday evening’s issue. A large service center shot us an email about something they were seeing in their market. We did some checking with other service centers and did not see this as a pressing issue but we might be in […]
AISI, Salt Lake City, Utah – The Board of Directors of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has elected John Ferriola, chairman, president and CEO of Nucor Corporation, to serve as chairman of the Institute until May 2017. “John is a dedicated and outspoken advocate for our industry, and has engaged his employees and […]
Flat Rolled Steel Service Centers Comment About Their Relationship Customers Late last week Steel Market Update started canvassing flat rolled steel distributors about their customer base in an effort to better understand the psyche of their customers. We found there are essentially three camps buying from the domestic steel service centers: 1) Contract customers tied […]
The United Steelworkers revealed highlights on Friday of its tentative contract with ArcelorMittal USA. The settlement followed eight months of negotiations while union members continued to work under the terms of the previous expired contract. The new contract does not include a pay raise but does maintain the no premium status for health care benefits […]
Baosteel Group refuted allegations of illegal trade activity charged by US Steel in a Section 337 investigation and said they were “shocked and angry” by the accusations. “As a company whose operations are completely market-oriented, Baosteel Group strictly abides by the laws and regulations of the places in which it is operating in its daily […]
In a surprise move on Friday, US Steel requested that the court shorten the CCAA protection period for US Steel Canada. US Steel Canada had petitioned the court to extend the CCAA period to July 28, 2016 but US Steel attorneys requested the Stay Period extend only to May 29. Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel, who has […]
NanoSteel announced delivery of its first advanced high strength steel to General Motors for initial testing. The new product was developed in partnership with AK Steel and is designed to provide automakers with a new standard in strength, formability and weight for steels used in the production of lightweight, fuel efficient vehicles. NanoSteel says what […]
Olympic Steel reported a narrower than expected net loss of $767,000 for first quarter 2016. Revenues were $258.3 million compared to $346 million in Q1 2015 due to lower prices and volume. First quarter shipments increased, however 16 percent from fourth quarter 2015 recapturing market share from last year’s declining marketplace. “We successfully navigated challenging […]
Updated April 28, 2016 – The United Steelworkers announced Wednesday that they have a tentative agreement contract agreement with ArcelorMittal USA. “After almost a year of difficult bargaining that continued eight months past the expiration of our previous contract, our committee’s hard work and dedication have resulted in a tentative agreement with ArcelorMittal,” said USW […]
Earlier today CSN began informing their U.S. customers importing flat rolled steel from them that there has been an accident at their #3 blast furnace in Brazil. The blast furnace, which was just coming back into operation after a 10-day scheduled maintenance outage, will now be down for an “undetermined” amount of time. SMU sources […]
AK Steel announced earnings on Tuesday and the big question in everyone’s mind was if AK Steel Ashland would be restarted. The answer is no, not at this time. CEO Roger Newport said the company does not want to get “hung up in the short term volatility” in the marketplace. AK Steel will be looking […]
Earlier today, Steel Market Update participated in a steel conference call hosted by HARDI. Every month the wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil steel to the HVAC industry conduct an informational conference call to evaluate what is happening in the North American market. Over the past few months we have seen the wholesalers much […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
US Steel Corp. announced a net loss of $340 million for first quarter 2016 and a segment EBIT loss of $242 million or $70 per ton. “It’s my perception that we have probably seen bottom,” said president and CEO Mario Longhi to reporters following U.S. Steel’s shareholder meeting Tuesday in Pittsburgh. US Steel began first […]
Joy Global Inc, a manufacturer of equipment for the mining industry, is looking for a buyer for its Longview, Texas steel plate mill. The Longview specialty mini-mill makes small batch, thick and extra thick steel plate for use in some of Joy Global’s premier mining equipment. Joy Global confirmed it is looking at a potential […]
First, Steel Dynamics Industries (SDI) reported an increase in steel shipments (+17%) and that they were continuing to grow, “…across all divisions but most significant in flat rolled.” They went on to report customer inventory levels are now “better aligned with actual demand, which is supporting increased domestic steel production and now also flat rolled […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
SSAB Americas reported sales of SEK 2,428 million ($297.5 million) for first quarter 2016 up from 2,321 in Q4. Shipments increased 9 percent from Q4 to 475,000 tonnes. Operating profit, or EBIT, was SEK 55 million ($6.7 million) compared to a loss of SEK 100 mill in in Q4 and profit of SEK 296 million […]
SSAB Americas announced the launch of a new awareness program—EcoSmart, to demonstrate its commitment to environmental stewardship. SSAB Americas’ EcoSmart steel contains 97 percent recoverable scrap metal that has been diverted from landfills. The recycled steel contains everything from old automotive parts to discarded appliances. Along with the use of recycled scrap metal, SSAB Americas […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum posted net income of $92.2 million on sales of $2.16 billion for first quarter 2016. Tons sold were up 8.9 percent from Q4 2015 with average selling price down 15.6 percent from a year ago and down 2.4 percent from the previous quarter. Reliance sold 1,216,700 tons of carbon steel in […]
Nucor announced first quarter 2016 consolidated net earnings within its projected range. Net income was $70.8 million and consolidated net sales were $3.72 billion, a 7 percent increase from Q4. Average sales price per ton decreased 11 percent from Q4, total shipments to outside customers was 5,148,000 tons. Nucor steel mills produced 5,390,000 tons of […]
Steel Dynamics announced a strong quarter with net income of $63 million on net sales of $1.7 billion for first quarter 2016. Steel operating income increased 104 percent to $136 million from fourth quarter due to a 17 percent improvement in shipments which totaled 2.12 million tons. Average steel selling price dropped $40 from Q4 […]
In order for prices to reverse course, service center inventories will need to grow which would ultimately slow mill order books and relax lead times. The service centers we spoke with today were almost unanimous in their opinion that now is not a good time (or any easy time) to build inventories. However, there were […]
California Steel Industries (CSI) opened their July flat rolled order book this week. The mill moved prices up by $80 per ton compared to the previous month. We are investigating exactly what that means to buyers. We understand that the mill is on a strict allocation to their regular customers. We expect the mill to […]