Our scrap sources are a little less optimistic today about June scrap price negotiations than they were a couple of short weeks ago. Those pesky Chinese are once again mucking up the waters with their billet offers to Turkey (billet can be used in place of scrap and cost less to convert to long products […]
March ferrous scrap exports totaled 1,096,231 net tons (994,485 metric tons) with Turkey, India, Mexico, Korea, and Taiwan being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 73.5 percent of all scrap exports. Total March ferrous scrap exports were 3.6 percent lower than previous month. March figures were […]
“U.S. Steel Sinks as Another Wave of Cheap Imports Predicted” was the headline in Bloomberg on Friday morning. The article cites Axiom Capital Research analyst Gordon Johnson who wrote to his clients, “A boat load of imports are likely on the way.” This opinion permeates the financial community and the pessimism is, in our opinion, […]
If things weren’t tight enough there have been a couple of accidents at steel mills, one in the United States (North Star BlueScope) and one in Brazil (CSN), which are impacting the domestic flat rolled steel order books. CSN (Brazil) Affecting Galvanized Markets About two weeks ago, CSN in Brazil had a breakout with their […]
If things weren’t tight enough there have been a couple of accidents at steel mills, one in the United States (North Star BlueScope) and one in Brazil (CSN), which are impacting the domestic flat rolled steel order books. CSN (Brazil) Affecting Galvanized Markets About two weeks ago, CSN in Brazil had a breakout with their […]
Scrap prices settled higher by $20 to $30 per gross ton delivered to the domestic steel mills, according to Steel Market Update (SMU) scrap sources. The rise in ferrous scrap prices has been one of the driving factors behind the flat rolled price increases announced by the domestic steel industry over the past few months. […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how he saw trading over the past week: For those of you who don’t know, it’s Cinco De Mayo! So I say “Hay Caramba”. If you want to […]
Scrap negotiations are taking some time to complete as the steel mills and dealers haggle over what is an appropriate increase above what the mills paid during the month of April. Our sources are advising us that there have been a few transactions in the Midwest and in the Detroit markets. So far the Detroit […]
If we could sum up the month of April in one word it would be, wow! We saw flat rolled steel prices jump by $90 per ton from the last week of March until the last week of April. Our HRC average for the month of April jumped by $87 per ton, while the CME […]
Steel buyers are beginning to brace themselves for what may well be another tumultuous month of allocations, closed order books and even higher steel prices. At this point it is a foregone conclusion with most buyers that there will be another increase. The question really is how much higher will prices go during the month […]
This may come as a surprise to some but, there are many who think 2016 may be one of those years where flat rolled steel price volatility, maybe even extreme volatility, could become the norm. We are now in the midst of a five month upswing in flat rolled steel prices which has taken benchmark […]
Steel Dynamics announced a strong quarter with net income of $63 million on net sales of $1.7 billion for first quarter 2016. Steel operating income increased 104 percent to $136 million from fourth quarter due to a 17 percent improvement in shipments which totaled 2.12 million tons. Average steel selling price dropped $40 from Q4 […]
It is still a little early to get a solid read on the ferrous scrap market and May pricing, but the indicators are pointing toward higher pricing. We heard from a number of our scrap sources over the past 24 hours and their guidance has been toward the scrap markets moving anywhere from $10 to […]
February ferrous scrap exports totaled 1,137,700 net tons (1,032,105 metric tons) with Turkey, India, Canada, Taiwan, and Korea being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 66.6 percent of all scrap exports. Total February ferrous scrap exports were 87.3 percent higher than previous month. Despite the large […]
Not all regions of the country have settled but we are seeing ferrous scrap prices increasing to the domestic mills by $40 to $55 per gross ton. The variance is depending on region and at what point prices started. Out of the Midwest and Southeastern markets we heard from one of our sources, “It’s been […]
We have received a number of calls from sellers of steel asking for our help in trying to explain, from an independent source, why flat rolled steel prices are moving higher and why we expect this trend to continue. When looking at the history of Steel Market Update, our steel market intelligence publication was actually […]
On Friday and Saturday of this past week, Steel Market Update attended the Association of Steel Distributors spring meeting. The following are some of the notes made during the presentations and during discussions with ASD members. Dr. Chris Kuehl of Armada Corporate Intelligence reported that he is “a little optimistic” when it comes to the […]
Supply of ferrous scrap continues to be an issue for the domestic steel mills. On Friday of this past week scrap prices settled in the Detroit market up $50 per gross ton. However, many of our scrap sources are advising that the rest of the country is in limbo as many dealers think the market […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to firm and many buyers are convinced there could be more price increases to come with a tightening foreign market and higher offers for foreign steel coupled with the expectation that ferrous scrap prices will increase by a minimum of $30 per gross ton for April delivery. SMU has been […]
Steel Market Update ferrous scrap sources are advising us that scrap prices are poised to move $30 to $50 per gross ton higher for April deliveries than what we saw negotiated at the beginning of March. The issue is supply. The domestic sheet mills are having issues finding all of the tonnage they need and […]
Steel mills are still scrounging for ferrous scrap with little luck. We are hearing from our scrap sources that prices could be up as much as $30 per ton and we have even heard some numbers higher than $30. The net result will be more pressure on steel and steel prices as the mills scramble […]
The following article was written by SMU founder and publisher, John Packard with the assistance of Platts Content Director, Metals Americas, Joseph Innace. Shortly after Steel Market Update (SMU) became a real company I understood the need for the flat rolled steel industry to have an pricing index which was independent and not tied as […]
Steel Dynamics anticipates stronger earnings results in first quarter 2016 due to higher steel shipments. A significant increase in flat rolled product volume is expected due to better aligned customer inventories and a decrease in import volumes. Lower average realized steel product pricing will more than offset savings from lower ferrous scrap costs, said SDI. […]
January ferrous scrap exports totaled 607,272 net tons (550,909 metric tons) with Turkey, India, Mexico, Peru, and Taiwan being the top five countries receiving scrap from the United States. These five countries accounted for 67.3 percent of all scrap exports. Total January ferrous scrap exports were 53.9 percent lower than previous month and 47.1 percent […]
As negotiations between the domestic steel mills and their ferrous scrap suppliers conclude we are seeing scrap prices rise with the Chicago markets “catching up” with some of the other regions. Dealers are reporting robust sales, especially to sheet mills as they are picking up spot market share from the integrated mills. Chicago area prices […]
It was only a few weeks ago that many within the ferrous scrap community felt when the negotiations were over for the month of March and the smoke cleared scrap prices would be essentially unchanged from February. That was then, this is now. One of the larger players in the market told us earlier today, […]
Steel Market Update received the following information about the ferrous scrap markets in Asia and Turkey from Damon Sun of Daido International: There has been aggressive movements in the ferrous scrap markets in Asia and Turkey in recent days. Off the East Coast, Turkish scrap prices are up $12-$15/mt and on the Asian region side, […]
Steel Market Update has been speaking with various scrap sources to see what the market trend looks like as we head into March ferrous scrap pricing negotiations. Virtually all dealers are of the opinion that the market looks to be sideways (same pricing as February) with maybe a little “lean” toward the upside. The dealers […]
In the twelve eleven months of 2015 bulk scrap exports were 12,955,000 metric tonnes, down by 9.7 percent from 2014 (14,280,000 net tons). The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages (3MMA) for 2015 and on the annual monthly average for previous years. The graph shows that exports declined for three […]
The year 2015 was a brutal one for the domestic steel mills as well as the distributors who service the end user markets on a spot basis. Many of the service centers who purchase secondary (non-prime or excess) steel have suffered and have had to change the way they conduct business in order to survive. […]