South Korean mills are out with new lower prices for steel sheet and steady prices for plate, according to recent offers reviewed by Steel Market Update. The trend is important because U.S. mills are increasingly willing to compete with imports, meaning that the latest import offers give an indication of where domestic prices are headed. […]
Wiley partner Alan Price will be the featured speaker on Steel Market Update’s next Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 11 a.m. ET (10 a.m. CT). We’ll discuss the big issues facing steel when it comes to trade policy – with a particular focus on Section 232 developments: Will there be a deal […]
Nucor Corp. has confirmed that its greenfield, $2.7 billion electric arc furnace (EAF) sheet mill will be built in West Virginia. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said the mill, expected to have capacity of three million tons per year, would be located in Mason County along the Ohio River. Additional sites in northern West Virginia are […]
West Virginia is on the cusp of announcing that it has been chosen for the site of Nucor Corp.’s new, $2.7 billion electric arc furnace (EAF) sheet mill, according to local media reports. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said when it announced the project last September that it was considering locations in three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania […]
Flat-rolled steel prices continue to fall, but the market participants I spoke to today were taking the news in stride. SMU’s average hot-rolled coil price now stands at $1,480 per ton ($74 per cwt), down $55 per ton from $1,535 per ton a week ago and down $475 per ton from a 2021 high – […]
SMU’s Community Chat webinar with Wolfe Research metals and mining managing director Timna Tanners last week was our second-best attended ever. With more than 800 registered attendees, Tanners topped her own previous record. Barry Zekelman, executive chairman and CEO of Zekelman Industries, still holds the title. But not by quite as wide a margin. We […]
Commercial Metals Co. (CMC) plans to build a “micro mill” to better serve markets in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. “The new micro mill will fortify our position in the large construction markets within the region and optimize CMC’s existing Eastern U.S. operational footprint,” CMC Chairman, President and CEO Barbara Smith said. The new mill […]
Chrysler’s van assembly plant in Saltillo, Mexico, will take downtime through Thursday, Feb. 10, for retooling, a company spokeswoman said. The Saltillo plant makes the Ram ProMaster van and has, like four other Chrysler plants in North America, been down since Monday, Jan. 3. Assembly plants in Belvidere, Ill.; Brampton, Ontario; Windsor, Ontario; and Toluca, […]
Looking for the latest data on the status of the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) with the European Union? SMU is here to help – even if the figures are not as user-friendly as we might like. Recall that the TRQ, which was signed into effect over the holidays by President Joe Biden, replaces blanket Section 232 […]
While some automakers think the chip shortage may be mostly behind them, others continue to struggle with supply-chain and labor issues – the latter stemming from a surge in COVID cases linked to the Omicron variant. Here is where things stand with three of the largest automakers in North America. Chrysler Stellantis – the European parent […]
U.S. Steel plans to take a nearly month-long maintenance outage in March on the B blast furnace at its Granite City Works near St. Louis, a company spokeswoman confirmed. The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker is targeting March 3-28 for the planned outage, she said. “We do not anticipate customer impact,” the spokeswoman added. Planned outages typically don’t […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) has started up the hot end of its $1.9 billion steel mill in Sinton, Texas, according to sources familiar with the matter. The Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker has melted a limited number of heats and rolled a limited number of coils – standard practice for a new mill, they said. SDI […]
Where will hot-rolled coil prices be at the end of the first quarter? That’s what we asked respondents to SMU’s latest survey. And the short answer is that they’ll be lower – but there is little consensus on just how much lower. We asked this: “Hot-rolled coil prices averaged $1,600 per ton at the end […]
Wolfe Research Managing Director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker for Steel Market Update’s first Community Chat webinar of 2022 on Wednesday, Jan. 5. We’ll discuss the big issues – the great debates – that will drive steel markets next year: • Will we see continued solid demand in 2022 or a “great unwind”? • […]
Stelco plans to enter the electric-vehicle (EV) battery recycling business with a new integrated shredding and hydrometallurgical refinery at its Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke, Ontario. The Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker said engineering studies for the new recycling operation are expected to be completed in mid-2022 with the plant anticipated to start up in 2023. The […]
Nucor has decided to keep plate prices unchanged with the opening of its February order book. The current plate pricing levels – announced on Monday, Jan. 3, and effective immediately – are the same as those rolled out in late November for January orders. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker’s letter to customers also marks the first […]
U.S. President Joe Biden has officially implemented a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) that will ease Section 232 restrictions on steel from the European Union. “I have determined that specified volumes of eligible steel … imports from the EU will no longer threaten to impair the national security,” Biden wrote in a presidential proclamation. The president did […]
Steel Market Update is taking some time off for Christmas and for the New Year. That means we will not publish issues on Sunday, Dec. 26, Tuesday, Dec. 28, Thursday, Dec. 30, and Sunday, Jan. 2. We will in addition not update prices on Tuesday, Dec. 28. We will resume our regular publication schedule – as […]
BlueScope Steel has closed its $240 million deal for ferrous scrap recycler MetalX. With the transaction complete, MetalX will operate under the name BlueScope Recycling and Materials. BlueScope announced the deal in early November and closed it on Dec. 17, according to a statement released earlier this week. MetalX is the leading scrap supplier to […]
There’s surprisingly little consensus among market participants about where steel prices will be next year, even though 2022 is just around the corner. That’s a big departure from the last 12 months, when respondents to Steel Market Update surveys were roughly in agreement on where prices would be in the future – or at the very least […]
First the takeaway: Don’t overthink it on the way down. Prices are falling, like it or not. The good thing, demand is still good – so don’t let falling prices ruin your holidays. Now, let’s overthink it a little. We’ve seen some chunky declines in recent weeks: SMU’s hot-rolled coil price fell $70 per ton […]
The Commerce Department has declined to initiate a duty-circumvention case filed by Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) against Vietnamese coated flat-rolled steel made from Japanese substrate The decision came on the heels of opposition from big foreign mills, major steel importers and exporters, as well as lobbying groups in Japan and Vietnam. “Commerce finds that SDI did […]
It’s not just domestic steel prices that are falling rapidly, so too are prices abroad. Case in point: South Korean steelmaker Hyundai. Its latest offer for hot-rolled coil for February-March shipment to the West Coast is $1,450 per ton DDP to Los Angeles-area ports. That’s down significantly from prior offers of $1,600-1,640 per ton, according […]
SMU is pleased to announce that Wolfe Research Managing Director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker on our first Community Chat webinar of 2022. We’ll discuss the big issues – the great debates – that will drive steel markets next year: * Will we see continued solid demand in 2022 or a “great unwind”? […]
SMU is pleased to announce that Wolfe Research Managing Director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker on our first Community Chat webinar of 2022. We’ll discuss the big issues – the great debates – that will drive steel markets next year: * Will we see continued solid demand in 2022 or a “great unwind”? […]
SMU is pleased to announce that Wolfe Research Managing Director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker on our first Community Chat webinar of 2022. We’ll discuss the big issues – the great debates – that will drive steel markets next year: • Will we see continued solid demand in 2022 or a “great unwind”? […]
California Steel Industries (CSI) has opened its February order book for flat-rolled steel and decreased prices significantly, according to market participants. That’s a big change from 2021, when the Fontana, Calif.-based slab converter often increased prices substantially from one month to the next. “Customers are reminded that prices are subject to change at any time […]
Ternium USA Inc. plans to invest $98 million to increase coating capacity at its steel mill in Shreveport, La. The money will be used to add a second paint line to the Shreveport facility with capacity of 120,000 tons per year. Construction of the new paint line is expected to begin in the first quarter […]
U.S. Steel expects lower adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter compared to the third but a strong 2022 thanks to contract prices resetting higher. The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker forecast fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $1.65 billion, down from adjusted EBITDA of $2.03 billion recorded in the prior quarter. The fourth-quarter dip represents a temporary slowdown in order […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) has joined competitor Nucor in predicting another quarterly earnings record for the last quarter of 2021. The Fort Wayne, Ind.-based steelmaker predicted fourth-quarter earnings in the range of $5.46 to $5.50 per diluted share, according to guidance released on Thursday, Dec. 16. That’s up from $4.85 per diluted share in the […]