Steel Market Update began our latest analysis of the flat rolled steel market on Monday of this week. We found mill lead times remained very similar to those reported at the beginning of March. The ArcelorMittal flat rolled steel price announcement was not made until late Monday afternoon and by then 50 percent of the […]
As mentioned in the Lead Times article, SMU began the process of analyzing the flat rolled steel market early on Monday morning – prior to any flat rolled price increase announcements being made. More than likely the survey results regarding mill negotiations represented by the graphic below are going to have about half the respondents […]
Hello from Orlando where the weather is sunny with temperatures in the low 80’s… Come to think of it I believe today is the first day of spring – and it couldn’t have come at a better time. One of the complaints being picked up in this week’s steel survey has been the impact the […]
The steel market, in particular the steel service center market, has been anticipating a flat rolled price increase announcement for the past few weeks. The fact that it was ArcelorMittal USA leading the way should not come as a surprise. The mills that have few to no spot tons to sell are AK Steel, US […]
Late on Monday afternoon, ArcelorMittal moved to raise spot flat rolled steel pricing. In an email to their customers, AM reported that, “Inventories on sheet products appear to be in balance of slightly lean compared to our second quarter consumption forecast. As a result, we are quite surprised by the recent erosion in pricing that […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released steel service center shipment and inventories for the month of February. The 20 day month was impacted by severe weather around the country and saw total steel shipments drop from 3,648,200 tons in January to 3,380,000 tons during February. Even so, the daily shipping rate rose to 169,000 […]
HARDI steel conference call members were of the opinion it is too early to tell if the just announced price increases will stick. Steel Market Update (SMU) participated in the monthly HARDI galvanized steel conference call this morning. The wholesalers, service centers and manufacturing companies on the call felt the price announcements were “good” for […]
A busy past 24 hours in the steel industry as the steel mills begin to make moves to stop the downward spiral in prices. As is our norm, Steel Market Update adjusted our SMU Price Momentum Indicator from Lower to Neutral. This is something we have done when the steel mills as a group go […]
The indexes are beginning to spread out, especially on benchmark hot rolled coil pricing. Steel Market Update saw HRC prices down $15 per ton this past week, SteelBenchmarker was $16 per ton lower (but they only produce prices twice per month), CRU down $5 and Platts held the line even with the previous week. The […]
The spread (variance) between World export prices for hot rolled coil compared to the average for hot rolled coil prices east of the Mississippi based on the Steel Market Update HRC index is shrinking. World export hot rolled coil (HRC) price is currently $505 per net ton FOB the port of export. When freight, loading […]
The partnership between ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp (NSSMC) has created a new sales entity for a portion of the flat rolled produced at what was once ThyssenKrupp Steel USA in Calvert, Alabama. The new 50/50 joint venture mill, renamed AM/NS Calvert, will have two sales groups much like I/N Tek which […]
Takashi Imura, General Manager US Flat Rolled Division for Metal One, announced that with the purchase of the ThyssenKrupp Steel USA steel mill in Calvert, Alabama by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Corporation and ArcelorMittal the new company: AM/NS Calvert has nominated Metal One to sell their flat rolled steel products. Metal One has been involved […]
Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day – it is also the beginning of the Steel Market Update flat rolled steel market analysis for mid-March. Invitations should be out around 8 AM ET. If you receive one please take a few minutes to click on the link contained in the email and respond to our questionnaire. John […]
Steel Market Update has been aware for awhile that at least one, and probably more than one, domestic steel mill has been trying to convince the rest of the industry to support dumping suits on coated products. This would most likely include galvanized and Galvalume steels. The countries being mentioned include China, India, Taiwan and […]
The rumor mill has been buzzing for a number of months about the potential for flat rolled steel dumping suits on galvanized and Galvalume steels. The focus of attention seems to be on China, India, Taiwan and South Korea as being the major offenders. However, Steel Market Update, which has a long background in coated […]
The following article on the financial, hot rolled coil futures, busheling scrap futures and iron ore markets is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk 1 and 2 instructor. Financial Markets: Today was not a good one, a repeat of last week when the market retraced on the back […]
Our Premium Level members have access to a special report we create from various data points and end up with import data by product, by port of arrival (USA) and by country of origin. Prior to this month we were keeping tabs on hot rolled imports, cold rolled imports, galvanized imports and Galvalume (other metallic) […]
As our regular readers already know, Steel Market Update has begun to project steel imports for the current month based on U.S. Department of Commerce license data. We advise our readers to be familiar with the US DOC license program (called SIMA) and the nuances with the program which were addressed in an article by […]
One of our readers sent me an article produced by another steel-related publication about the state of Kentucky offering financial incentives to AK Steel. The Kentucky Industrial Revitalization Act is being extended with one of the hopes that AK Steel will use the incentives to help reline the Ashland blast furnace. The question asked by […]
Prices continue to erode on all flat rolled steel and buyers expect the trend to continue as iron ore, met coal and scrap prices retreat in their markets. One domestic flat rolled steel buyer pointed out, “The cost of production is coming down.” The expectation is that lower scrap prices will translate into lower hot […]
Flat rolled steel prices moved lower over the past week. The biggest move was in hot rolled which dropped by $15 per ton pushing our average on benchmark hot rolled coil pricing to $620 per ton ($31.00/cwt). Here is how we are seeing prices this week: Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $600-$640 per ton […]
March scrap prices have settled with most areas of the country moving lower. The key Chicago area saw prices as follows: #1 Heavy Melt = $370 to $380 with $385 average down $15 per gross ton.Shredded scrap = $388 down $17 per gross ton.#1 Busheling = $388-$400 with an average of $394 per gross ton […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been writing about the building of the iron ore bubble in China for some time now. Our iron ore trading contact in Asia has been warning us of the massive inventories being built and now the crackdown by the Chinese government and banks on bad loans to both public and […]
For our Premium Level members – we should have a special Premium Supplemental newsletter for you by Wednesday afternoon. In it will be an article on currency values and changes and their impact on the market as well as our imports by product, port and country. We will be including slabs in our import by […]
Russia and the Ukraine are major steel producers and exporters of steel to the rest of the world. Under the current political upheaval associated with these two countries, Steel Market Update thought it might be interesting for our readers to understand what steel products are being imported from the two countries into the United States. […]
The pace of the decline slowed this past week with a number of the indexes showing mild to no erosion in flat rolled steel pricing. Benchmark hot rolled steel prices dropped into the mid $630’s. The spread between hot rolled and cold rolled steel pricing was an unusually high $121 per ton. Plate prices continue […]
Steel Market Update saw the percentage of manufacturing companies reporting steel service center flat rolled steel spot prices as declining increase from 20 percent in early February to 54 percent at the beginning of March. This past week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early March analysis of the flat rolled steel markets. This is […]
Steel Market Update has been writing about the iron ore pricing and inventory bubble growing in China. We have been forecasting that it is only a matter of time before the bubble will burst and iron ore prices will collapse. The issues are a slowing Chinese steel sector, pollution issues plaguing the Chinese government, bank […]
We haven’t given up on our goal to broaden the perspectives of our readers through the use of our website. The most effective way to understand and expand ones knowledge of the industry is to interact with the news, trends and issues of the industry as they happen. This cannot be done effectively through the […]
On Monday of this week, Steel Market Update (SMU) began our early March flat rolled steel market analysis. We sent invitations to just under 600 companies associated with the industry. Of the companies responding 44 percent were manufacturing companies (end users), 40 percent were steel service centers/wholesalers (distributors), trading companies represented 6 percent of the […]