General Motors and Stellantis have extended downtime at some of their North American plants into August because of the ongoing chip shortage. The latest development means all Detroit-area “Big Three” automakers will be grappling with shortages of semiconductors and other parts into next month. Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford – the crosstown rival of GM and Stellantis […]
General Motors and Stellantis have extended downtime at some of their North American plants into August because of the ongoing chip shortage. The latest development means all Detroit-area “Big Three” automakers will be grappling with shortages of semiconductors and other parts into next month. Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford – the crosstown rival of GM and Stellantis […]
Steel Market Update reported our service center inventories and shipment data to our data providers today. Our Premium level members will get the report at 1 p.m. ET tomorrow. I can whet your appetite by telling you that flat rolled inventories on a days of supply basis rose slightly, but are not yet at what […]
“It’s an absolute certainty we will have a stronger M&A market in the next couple years. There are a lot of businesses looking to buy and a lot of businesses looking to sell. There will be many more announcements of deals in the second half, especially the fourth quarter,” predicted Dan Sullivan, founder of Montrose […]
Nucor plans to slash Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions at its steel mills by 35% by 2030. North America’s largest steelmaker also aims in the following years to be “net zero” when it comes to carbon emissions. “Our GHG intensity is less than one-third the world average, but we are committed to […]
Big River Steel plans to take a week-long plant-wide maintenance outage in October at its mill in Osceola, Ark., a company spokeswoman confirmed. The planned outage, for normal preventative maintenance and mill reliability, is scheduled to start on Oct. 10, she said. The scheduled maintenance includes both electric-arc furnaces (EAFs)—with annual production capacity of 3.3 […]
So much for the summer doldrums. After a brief pause following Independence Day (and Canada Day), sheet prices have resumed their sharp upward trajectory. Hot-rolled coil prices are now over $1,800 per ton ($90 per cwt) while cold-rolled and galvanized base prices are above $2,000 per ton ($100 per cwt). If this pace of gains […]
Auto assemblies in North America rose further in June despite a continued struggle with the global semiconductor shortage. Some automakers in the region—including GM and Toyota—were able to ramp up production and shipments after securing enough microchips, pushing the annual rate in the North American region up by 16.4% month on month, according to LMC […]
Algoma Steel is slated to receive as much as C$420 million ($340 million U.S.) from the Canadian government to help pay for its switch from integrated steelmaking to electric-arc furnace (EAF) production. The amount will be distributed over four years and is aimed at making the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based flat-rolled steelmaker one of the […]
Ford plans to idle or reduce production at nearly all its North American assembly plants in July – and in some instances into early August – because of a shortage of chips and other parts. “While we continue to manufacture new vehicles, we’re prioritizing completing our customers’ vehicles that were assembled without certain parts due to […]
Mark Bula sees an analogy between the latest green steel technology and the electric arc furnaces (EAFs) that transformed traditional steelmaking back in the 1980s. “Just as minimills once disrupted the industry, we must once again take a monumental leap forward,” he said. Bula is well known in the steel industry for his prior role […]
Ferrous scrap prices are likely to rise again in July on top of the $50-60 per gross ton increase in June – but just how much remains unclear, according to Steel Market Update sources. “July expectations vary greatly,” said one dealer in the Northeast. “Most consumers are conceding prices will be up $20-50/GT depending on grade and […]
Ferrous scrap prices rose by $20/GT for prime grades, but were unchanged for obsoletes, in trading for July. Prime supplies were influenced by the slowdown in automotive production, while obsolete prices reflect stable export demand. Sources tell Steel Market Update that prices in the Ohio Valley settled around $505-514/GT for shred, $500-510/GT for plate and […]
Ferrous scrap prices, like finished steel prices, have been on the rise for most of the year (see chart), but could see a pause in August. Sources tell Steel Market Update they expect obsolete grades to trade $20/GT lower next month, while prime prices will most likely remain unchanged. “Obsolete grades should trade in the […]
Once Produced…Can We Even Get It Shipped? Transportation issues continue to plague the flat-rolled and plate steel markets. It’s bad enough that many steel mills are running one to four weeks late against their original promise date. We are hearing once the steel is produced it can take days to weeks of waiting for a […]
Once Produced…Can We Even Get It Shipped? Transportation issues continue to plague the flat-rolled and plate steel markets. It’s bad enough that many steel mills are running one to four weeks late against their original promise date. We are hearing once the steel is produced it can take days to weeks of waiting for a […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. plans to take a 45-day maintenance outage at the big No. 7 blast furnace at its Indiana Harbor steel works in East Chicago, Ind., a company spokeswoman said. The planned outage, for a partial reline of the furnace, is scheduled to start on Sept. 1, she said. The No. 7 furnace has capacity […]
Worthington Industries, Inc., reported net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 totaling $978.3 million, a 60% increase over the comparable quarter in the prior year. The increase was driven by overall volume improvements in both Steel Processing and Pressure Cylinders and higher average direct selling prices in Steel Processing, the company said. “We […]
Plate prices have seen an astronomical rise, but the big gains have not been enough to keep the spread between sheet and plate from ballooning. And that spread is already the inverse of what is the norm. Normally plate prices carry a premium to sheet prices – now the reverse is true. Sheet carries around a […]
The Ashland Works steel mill is coming down after operating for the better part of 100 years on the Ohio River. Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. confirms that it will demolish the idled Kentucky mill that it acquired from AK Steel in 2019. Although there were initial discussions about restarting the mill to produce pig iron, ultimately the […]
2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference Revised Agenda as of June 20, 2021 There are 55 days before the start to the 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference. We should have close to 300 companies and 800+ executives attending this year based on where we are today. The conference agenda is close to its final shape. There […]
2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference Revised Agenda as of June 20, 2021 There are 55 days before the start to the 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference. We should have close to 300 companies and 800+ executives attending this year based on where we are today. The conference agenda is close to its final shape. There […]
The traditional correlations between finished steel and scrap prices have broken down this year, and historical spreads might remain off-kilter as more electric-arc furnace (EAF) mills come online globally, CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley said. Crude steel output via EAFs in North America is expected to grow by about 16 million metric tonnes, approximately 20%, […]
As a co-founder of Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI), Mark Millett has had a front row seat to the dramatic changes the steel industry has staged over the past three decades. Actually, he has played a leading role in many of those changes and continues to choreograph the latest act in steel’s story with the imminent […]
The Art of Forecasting… This week I saw another milestone drop that I never thought I would live to see. Galvanized base pricing out of a domestic mill at $100.00/cwt (seems like there is an extra digit there for some reason). I go back far enough to remember galvanized steel prices around $10.00/cwt…. For the […]
The Art of Forecasting… This week I saw another milestone drop that I never thought I would live to see. Galvanized base pricing out of a domestic mill at $100.00/cwt (seems like there is an extra digit there for some reason). I go back far enough to remember galvanized steel prices around $10.00/cwt…. For the […]
SMU caught up with Ternium CEO Máximo Vedoya about the Latin American steelmaker’s plans for its new, $1.1-billion hot strip mill in in Pesquería, just outside of Monterrey, Mexico. The new mill – also known as #4 Pesqueria – sports capacity of 4.4 million tons per year. It rolled its first coils in May and Vedoya […]
By Greg Wittbecker, Advisor, CRU Analysis Ten years ago the aluminum can, and the aluminum sheet mills that supplied them, looked to be on borrowed time. Aluminum beverage can shipments, as reported by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) had been flatlining for years. Can manufacturers were consolidating, with Ball and Ardagh acquiring Rexam assets in […]
By Greg Wittbecker, Advisor, CRU Analysis The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on overall aluminum demand in 2020 was well documented. However, that storyline masked a remarkable rebound in the demand for aluminum beverage cans. Data from the Aluminum Association shows this: • 2020 total domestic shipments of can stock supplied to the can market rose 3.3% […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley, from CRU’s Steel Sheet Products Monitor Sheet prices in northern Europe, like in other areas of the world, have begun to decline – although prices in the USA have yet to follow this trend. Still, it appears that this upward trend in the U.S. market is nearing an end. […]