Tag: Cleveland-Cliffs

Galvanized buyers reported solid demand and balanced inventories this week and were anticipating the sheet price increase announced by Cleveland-Cliffs on Wednesday.

GrafTech International has appointed Timothy K. Flanagan as the company’s president and CEO, effective March 26.

Cleveland-Cliffs aims to increase sheet prices by $60 per short ton (st) and is seeking a new target base for hot-rolled coil (HRC) of $900/st. That's according to a press release circulated on Wednesday morning, March 27.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Monday six projects that will receive up to $1.5 billion in funding to further decarbonize the iron and steel industry.

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has plans to replace the blast furnace at its Middletown Works in Ohio with a direct-reduced iron (DRI) plant and two electric melting furnaces (EMFs).

2024 started with a $200 per short ton (st), one-week demon drop in the CME Midwest hot-rolled (HR) coil futures. Then, HR futures consolidated in the low $800s/st with the April future trading to as low as $770/st as the curve shifted into contango or upward sloping. A big move was expected, and a big […]

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. “To govern is to choose.” Those words, reportedly first uttered by the late French Premier Pierre Mendes-France in the 1950s, resonate vividly in our time. It means that choices have consequences and that priorities must be set based on goals. Interested parties, in and out of government, raise their voices in […]

US senators have introduced the "Stop Mexico’s Steel Surge Act," which seeks to reimpose 25% Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel imports.

A Detroit-area mill entered the scrap market on Thursday offering down $70 per gross ton (gt) on #1 busheling. And Nucor announced a minimum base price of $825 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled (HR) coil. What's the best way to interpret would could be read as contradictory trends?

Nucor and Cleveland-Cliffs on Thursday announced target minimum base prices for hot-rolled (HR) coil. Both said the moves were effective immediately.

Antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) rates on imports of cut-to-length plate from two major South Korean producers may soon be adjusted.

The failure of the trade remedy actions against imported steel tin mill products (TMPs) continues to resonate. Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steel Workers Union (USW) lost the case at the International Trade Commission (ITC) last month. A few days ago, the ITC released its final report explaining the decision against imposing antidumping and countervailing duties […]

Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said he blames U.S. Steel’s lack of participation in the tin mill products trade case for an unfavorable US International Trade Commission (ITC) decision.

We’ve all heard a lot about mill “discipline” following a wave of consolidation over the last few years. That discipline is often evident when prices are rising, less so when they are falling. I remember hearing earlier this year that mills weren’t going to let hot-rolled (HR) coil prices fall below $1,000 per short ton (st). Then not below $900/st. Now, some of you tell me that HR prices in the mid/high-$800s are the “1-800 price” – widely available to regular spot buyers. So what comes next, and will mills “hold the line” in the $800s?

Everyone knows the old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. A lot of inked has been spilled trying to figure out why prices are falling now. I thought it might be as simple as this: Market dynamics in the fourth quarter (UAW strike, companies buying ahead of an anticipated post-strike price spike, etc.) pulled forward restocking activity that typically happens in the first quarter.

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. announced on Thursday, Feb. 15, that it will indefinitely idle tinplate production at its mill in Weirton, W.Va.

Last week, steel consumers prevailed in a rare victory over US petitioners in trade cases on tin mill steel products. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) voted 4—0 that Cleveland-Cliffs, the sole remaining domestic producer of tin mill products (used to make containers such as “tin cans”) was neither injured nor threatened with injury by imports of competing products from Canada, China, and Germany. Imports from South Korea were found to be “negligible,” and the investigation on Korean imports was terminated. 

ArcelorMittal indicated that a sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel could lead to it taking full control of AM/NS Calvert, its joint venture sheet mill in Alabama. "Typically, in such situations, when there is a selling partner, they sell it to the other partner in the joint venture, right. So I could imagine such a situation would develop,” Mittal said.

More supply coming online and an unchanging demand environment – two key themes for 2024 – could soon bring the steel sheet storm to a market near you.

At the final hour, the trade case investigating unfairly traded imports of tin mill products has been terminated.

I participated in the 35th annual Tampa Steel Conference last week, a conclave of steel producers, consumers, traders, logisticians, and (a few) trade lawyers. I participated in a panel discussion concerning challenges in managing supply chains in these troubled times. Things appear to be heading in the wrong direction in this field. Supply chains were shown to be vulnerable to pandemics in 2020 and 2021, and, in 2022 and 2023, to regional conflicts and weather slowing or stopping the free movement of goods through trade bottlenecks (the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Bosporus, etc.)

Much has happened since we last met on Jan. 4. Cleveland-Cliffs announced a price increase on Jan. 3, lifting the futures market in the morning only for it to finish the day $20-$30 per short ton (st) below those morning highs. On Jan. 4, the futures curve was down another $10-$28/st. And in my column for SMU that evening, I asked a question: Would those aggressive sellers be met with a short-squeeze forcing them to cover, or had the market peaked with the negative price action to start the year the proverbial canary in the coal mine?

SunCoke Energy Inc.’s earnings improved in the fourth quarter, driven by higher coal-to-coke yields, the company said in its Q4, and full-year results on Feb. 1.

Cleveland Cliffs executives didn’t mince words when opening its Q4’23 earnings call.

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. shipped more than 4 million short tons (st) of steel in each quarter of 2023, pushing its full-year shipments to a record 16.4m st.

I’m writing these final thoughts from the JW Marriott in Tampa. And I’m looking forward to seeing some of you reading this in just a few hours at the opening networking reception of the Tampa Steel Conference. Nearly 550 people will be there – a new record for the event. If you’re looking for things […]

A Jan. 24 SEC filing by U.S. Steel Corp. reveals further details about the company’s strategic review process.

Cleveland-Cliffs has successfully completed a hydrogen injection trial at its Indiana Harbor #7 blast furnace in East Chicago, Ind., near Chicago.

SMU’s Jan. 24 Community Chat, featuring CRU's Principal Analyst Erik Hedborg, provided viewers with an update on the current state of the global iron ore market.

This latest SMU steel market survey is a snapshot of a sheet market inflecting lower. A significant 43% of survey respondents said that the hot-rolled (HR) coil market has already peaked. Compare that to only 8% when we released our last steel market survey on Jan. 5.