Manufacturing companies reported their service center suppliers dropping spot steel prices this past week. Ninety percent of the manufacturing respondents responding to last week’s SMU flat rolled steel market questionnaire reported service centers as dropping spot pricing. This continues a growing trend for distributors to dump inventory at reduced margins (or at no margins at […]
Magnetation LLC announced it may temporarily idle its Plant 2 facility in Bovey, Minn. A WARN notice has been issued to employees of the facility. If the production curtailment is followed through, the closure will take place on or after January 31, 2016. “While any operating curtailment is unfortunate, we must balance our current production […]
The HARDI wholesalers held their monthly galvanized steel conference call earlier today. During the call the wholesalers provided insights into business conditions affecting the companies and discussed the status of the flat rolled steel markets. HARDI wholesalers supply galvanized sheet and coil steels to the mechanical contractors associated with residential and commercial construction in North […]
For those of you who have been steady readers and members of Steel Market Update you know that the purpose of my Final Thoughts is for me to voice some of my thoughts and opinions on a wide range of topics. I am going to use this forum today to speak about what I am […]
I am here in New York City participating in the Cowen & Company Global Metals and Mining Conference. Day one was dedicated to the steel industry and the various commodities (scrap, iron ore, metallurgical coal). I thought I would provide a snapshot into some of the comments made during the conference by various CEO’s. Lourenco […]
I am aware that on October 23, 2015 the domestic steel mills filed allegations of critical circumstances on exports of hot rolled coil from four countries: Brazil, Australia, Japan and The Netherlands. I will have more details and statements from both buyers and sellers later this week. I wanted to spend time studying the affirmative […]
After three days of non-stop packaging followed by 24 hours of non-stop cleaning we have finally departed our Georgia offices and are in transit (as I write) to our new location in Florida. It is a two day trip so if you call our office you may get a voice mail message – my apologies […]
AK Steel announced today that James L. Wainscott is retiring as President and Chief Executive Officer of AK Steel, effective January 1, 2016. Wainscott will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors in a non-executive capacity. Roger K. Newport has been named as the new Chief Executive Officer and will serve as […]
“Cost is the enemy of profitability,” said AK Steel CEO James Wainscott in the company’s third quarter earnings call. AK Steel proved it can cut costs, trimming $58 million at Dearborn Works and $60 million for the company as a whole for 2015, and delivering a positive net income of $6.7 million in third quarter. […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-October flat rolled steel market analysis. We invited almost 600 companies to participate in our questionnaire which is focused on tracking trends affecting flat rolled steel buyers and users. In our opinion, one of the most valuable pieces of information coming out of our market analysis is the […]
Claimants in a steel anti-trust suit that has been ongoing since 2008 will finally receive some satisfaction. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Illinois approved the distribution of settlement funds for 1,857 claims totaling almost $103.7 million. The settlement stems from a 2008 price fixing case involving eight steel manufacturers. Standard Iron Works […]
SMU was disappointed in two key data sets which were released this past week. The first was the MSCI service center shipment and inventories which indicated a weakening economy and a continuation of the high inventory levels at the U.S. distributors. The second was the import license data through the first 15 days of October […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their downward spiral this past week based on our analysis of the four steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. We will be watching prices closely over the next week or two to see if we breach the psychological $400 per ton number on benchmark hot rolled coil. We have […]
AK Steel announced on Friday that it will temporarily idle the blast furnace and related steelmaking operations at the Ashland, Kentucky Works facility as a result of challenging domestic market conditions. AK Steel said it does not intend to idle the hot-dip galvanizing line at Ashland Works that primarily services automotive customers. The company has […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released September shipments and inventories for U.S. distributors. We reported in Thursday evening’s issue that flat rolled steel shipments were weaker than expected while receipts were higher than expected. The combination of the two has driven our Apparent Excess to over 1 million net tons. The SMU Flat Rolled […]
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis with an invitation to participate in our questionnaire going out at 8 AM on Monday morning. If you receive an invite please take a few minutes to click on the link and complete the questionnaire. Steel Market Update will be moving our headquarters over the […]
On Tuesday of this week, SMU produced an article about the recent changes in coating extras by most (by not all) of the domestic mills. Within 30 minutes of publishing the article we knew we had made a couple errors of omission as we had The Techs with different extras that their parent company: Steel […]
Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop will be held in the Columbus, Mississippi area on January 19 and 20, 2016. This workshop will include a tour of the SDI Columbus steel mill. We are working on hotel information right now and hope to have the hotel selected by early […]
A debate has begun as to when flat rolled steel prices will bottom and begin to reverse course. Part of that dialogue is what will supply look like should US Steel go through with balancing their production by temporarily taking down their Granite City Works. This would be on top of the trade suits which […]
Both manufacturing companies and flat rolled steel service centers reported the percentage of distributors offering lower spot pricing on flat rolled steels as growing. This is a key indicator followed by Steel Market Update (and no other publication) as falling spot prices out of the distributors are usually due to high inventories leading to competitive […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 24, 2015 – The Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI), a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), has launched a new website that focuses on using steel for building construction. The new site, located at www.buildusingsteel.org, provides information for engineers, architects, owners, building contractors, code officials and other construction […]
AK Steel expects shipments to increase by 3 percent in third quarter to approximately 1.86 million tons primarily on the strength of auto market shipments. In its third quarter guidance, the company said it anticipates an average selling price of $910 per ton, down 2 percent from Q2 due to lower carbon steel spot pricing […]
As expected, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has made a preliminary determination that cold-rolled steel produced in seven foreign countries (Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and UK) is causing or threatening to cause injury to the domestic steel industry. The Netherlands, which was also named in the antidumping suit, was dropped from […]
Shipping on the Rouge River in Detroit has been at a standstill ever since a bank collapsed on Aug. 23 blocking the waterway near the Carmeuse Lime dock. Freighters attempting to bring iron ore and other raw materials to steel mills in the area have been unable to complete deliveries and dock inventories are declining […]
For those interested in more information on the HRC trade case, the following is a reprint of the International Trade Administration Fact Sheet on the AD/CVD investigation into imports of hot rolled steel flat products from seven countries. The US DOC did decide earlier this week to allow the HRC case to move forward. ITA […]
In early May 2015 zinc spot price on the LME was trading at, or close to, $1.10 per pound. In early April 2015 US Steel adjusted their coating extras while the rest of the mills remained at the levels they set in early 4th Quarter 2014 when zinc was trading in the range of $1.00-$1.10 […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
On June 3rd Nucor, US Steel, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition against China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy on corrosion-resistant steels. To put this into layman’s terms the domestic mills filed a dumping (AD) and CVD suit on producers of galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) […]
Lightweighting vehicles with advanced high strength steel was the topic of conversation August 3 at the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars, in Traverse City, Mich. “Steel is the clear winner in the material competition as a result of its superior value,” said panelist Dr. Jody Hall, Vice President-Automotive Market, Steel Market Development Institute […]
On June 3, 2015, six U.S. steel mills filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against corrosion resistant (referred to as CORE, which are coated steels such as galvanized and Galvalume products) steels from: China, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Italy. Late last week, attorneys representing Nucor Corporation, US Steel, Steel Dynamics, AK Steel , […]