Tag: Construction

The strong resilience of iron ore prices has come to an end with the weak steel performance worldwide and significantly improved iron ore availability in China.

SMU’s Current Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Index eased to an eight-week low, according to our most recent survey data.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai has voiced the United States’ unease at a marked increase in steel and aluminum imports from Mexico, and what she termed a lack of transparency about Mexican imports of the metals from third countries.

In the period between mid-February and mid-March, CRU forecasts global demand for steelmaking raw materials to change little from the previous month,but buying activity will improve towards the end of next month

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) reading from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Deltek showed a slight uptick in January but continued to signal soft conditions. The index inched up from 45.4 in December to 46.2 in January. While the index has moved higher consecutively each month since October, it remains in contraction territory. […]

Falling steel prices at present are not a symptom of demand but of imports arriving into the US and to some parts of Mexico, Ternium’s CEO Maximo Vedoya said this week.

Nucor Corp. announced plans to build a new rebar micro mill in the Pacific Northwest.

Latin American steelmaker Ternium posted a strong uptick in earnings in its fourth quarter, and sees increasing steel demand growth in Mexico.

US housing starts fell for the second consecutive month in January, according to the most recent data from the US Census Bureau.

Algoma Steel has restarted its blast furnace and resumed steelmaking at its mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Reliance Inc. – formerly Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. – introduced its “new company identity” that emphasized its “evolution to more than steel,” the company said in its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report.

Prices for galvanized products have been falling for more than a month, and market participants expect this trend to continue in the near term.

Bull Moose Tube Co. (BMT) is now offering jumbo hollow structural sections (HSS) in the US market.

Steel prices stabilized in early January before they began to inflect lower midway through last month. Tags peaked at $1,045 per short ton (st) during the first week of January, even as some mills tried to push prices higher, to no avail. Hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices ended January at an average of $1,000/st, declining by $45/st during the month.

South Korean integrated steelmaker Posco has started building a 2.5-million-metric-ton-per-year (Mt/y) electric-arc furnace (EAF) at its Gwangyang works, a key stage in the company’s transition to becoming a green steel producer.

The US Midwest premium continued to trade between 18.8–19.4 cents per pound (¢/lb) this week. There remains a host of macroeconomic and geopolitical risks in the current environment, but none have affected the short-term outlook for the premium. Current trading for April reached 20 ¢/lb which is on par with CRU’s current forecast for Q2’24. Dates closer to the end of the year have fallen to 21.2 ¢/lb.

The Dodge Momentum Index (DMI) was largely unchanged in January, moving up marginally due to improved institutional conditions, according to the latest Dodge Construction Network (DCN) data.

What are folks in the steel industry talking about? SMU polled steel buyers on a variety of subjects this past week, including domestic steel prices, import offers, buying activity, and more. Rather than summarizing the comments we received, we are sharing some of them in each buyer’s own words.

Algoma Steel reported a wider loss in its fiscal third quarter amid lingering impact from the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike and “heavy seasonal maintenance.” Additionally, the Canadian steelmaker said it has completed repairs at it blast furnace and “restored partial coke-making capabilities” after a previously reported incident on Jan. 20.

The recession many predicted did not materialize in 2023, leading industry experts in several key end-user markets for steel cautiously optimistic for 2024.

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.)

Speaking during a fireside chat at the Tampa Steel Conference on Monday, Jan. 29, Hybar CEO David Stickler provided a status update on the company’s new rebar mill project and its plans for the future, including the possibility of a flat-rolled steel mill.

A weaker steel market and lower prices in Europe dragged down SSAB’s earnings during the last three months of 2023.

Algoma Steel is currently navigating a challenge as it deals with an unplanned outage at its blast furnace, but the company’s CEO is still bullish on its future as an EAF steelmaker.

Steel Dynamics Inc. faces rising costs for its Columbus, Miss., aluminum rolling mill, but the project timeline remains on track.

The Tampa Steel Conference is just a few days away. Here are some topics I’m looking forward to learning more about during the proceedings on Monday and Tuesday. For starters, we’ll have about a month of 2024 under our belt when we convene on Sunday. How does that compare to what we thought the start of the year would look like? And what’s the outlook for the balance of the year?

The 35th Annual Tampa Steel Conference starts in just a few days. As one of the premier domestic steel conferences, it’s the perfect way to kick off 2024. It’s not too late to register if you haven’t already done so, but make sure to book now!

Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker Algoma Steel said its blast furnace could be down for approximately two weeks following an incident at its coke batteries over the weekend. “We expect some impact on shipments, the extent of which will depend on the timeline to resume blast furnace operations,” the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario-based company said

We’re just a week away from the 35th annual Tampa Steel Conference! It’s one of the premier domestic steel conferences and the first can’t-miss event of 2024. If you haven’t already registered, there is still time but make sure to book now!

The LME three-month price was broadly stable on the morning of Jan. 19 and was last seen trading at $2,170 per metric ton (mt). The $2,200/mt level is now acting as a resistance it seems, but the break of the previous support level has not inspired a sell-off, at least not for now.