Lead times have not shot out since the price increase announcements were made in early May. Hot rolled lead times were reported as being 3.5 weeks at the beginning of May and one month later HRC lead times averaged 3.66 weeks according to the results of our most recent flat rolled steel survey. Lead times […]
Our respondents to last week’s flat rolled steel market survey continue to report prices as being negotiable, maybe not to the degree we have been seeing since the beginning of the year, but negotiable non-the-less. However, we need to remember that the vast majority of our responses were made prior to the anti-dumping trade suit […]
The “not if but when” question has been settled as the long awaited trade case filing on galvanized steel finally occurred on Wednesday. Six domestic steel mills submitted a petition to the Department of Commerce asking for the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from China, the Republic of Korea, […]
Steel Market Update will have a number of articles in today’s issue of our newsletter about the corrosion resistant trade cases filed yesterday by six U.S. steel mills. We will discuss what has to be proved, the timetable that a case goes through at both the Department of Commerce (DOC) and the International Trade Commission […]
Steel Market Update has written numerous articles about the corrosion resistant trade case filed by six domestic steel mills against five foreign countries. The petition which called for anti-dumping and countervailing duty action will now go through the proper channels at the US Department of Commerce (anti-dumping) and the International Trade Commission (countervailing duty). There […]
The following article was the first of a two part series of articles on how the anti-dumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) systems work regarding any steel trade case that might be filed. Since we now have a filing on corrosion resistant steels (galvanized, aluminized and Galvalume) we thought that our readers would be interested […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) wants to provide as much detail as possible regarding imports of coated steels into the United States. In particular, we are focusing on galvanized and Galvalume imports from China, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy. Galvanized: When looking at the data for 2012, 2013, 2014 and the first 4 months 2015, […]
I was pleased to hear from a number of our readers who had used the search function at the top right hand side of our website in order to find old articles that we had written on the subject of dumping suits and the process that the suit has to go through. I used the […]
When speaking to buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel this week, one theme became abundantly clear: everyone is waiting for trade cases and, second, where scrap prices will end up for the month of June. Both are expected to support a further tightening of steel prices. Scrap is expected to rise anywhere from $10 […]
Steel Market Update sources: mill, service center and others are advising us that anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) trade cases on coated products will be filed yet this week. We have heard that the filing could come as early as tomorrow (Wednesday, June 3rd) or on Thursday of this week. Any trade filing on coated […]
We ended the month of April with the SMU Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral. As the month of May began, the domestic mills announced price increases and managed to move our needle to Higher. As the month ends, our Momentum Indicator continues to point toward higher domestic flat rolled steel prices over the next 30 […]
We are seeing a further firming in the hot rolled numbers with our sources advising that most offers are in the range of $460 per ton with a few offers higher and limited offers lower unless tied to specific tonnage and sizes that fit the producing mill’s sweet spot. Lead times have moved out, for […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts a detailed flat rolled steel market analysis. We do this by inviting approximately 600 companies, which have been vetted by our publisher to make sure they are legitimate buyers, sellers or executives involved with hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume or plate products. We then send invitations […]
The US Department of Commerce released preliminary census import data today (Tuesday) for the month of April. Steel Market Update (SMU) has analyzed the data for April and we have also revised our Trend Analysis for foreign steel imports for the month of May based on license data received through today. April Preliminary Census data […]
We saw mixed results this past week as the various indexes attempt to find firm ground for flat rolled steel pricing. Of the three reporting indexes followed by Steel Market Update last week, one (Steel Market Update) saw two of the four products as being lower than the week before. Although, SMU advised that the […]
According to the results of the Steel Market Update most recent flat rolled steel survey, domestic steel mill lead times are beginning to extend reflecting the improvement in the mills’ order books. We are, however, still far away from the lead times that we saw in the middle of May 2014. Hot rolled lead times […]
U.S. and Canadian steel buyers reported mills as less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume prices) at the beginning of the month of May. Prior to that, the domestic steel mills had been extremely active and willing to negotiate pricing on all products. This, according to our […]
This week we are seeing a “settling” of prices as buyers work with their suppliers. We are seeing a mixed market which was described to us by an executive with a large service center when he told us, “… it’s quite perplexing. The domestics certainly are seeing increased activity, slightly longer lead-times, and slightly higher spot […]
The piece below was published to our Premium level members earlier this week, but we would like to share it with our Executive level members as an example of what our Premium members have access to. This report goes into much more depth than our Apparent Steel Supply article published last Thursday. If you are […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market to enable a side by side comparison and the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both supply and mill shipments of sheet […]
This week Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to Higher from Neutral. Based on our checks of the steel buying community, prices are beginning to firm and the $20 per ton price increase announced by a number of the steel mills appears to be sticking. SMU is of the opinion as long as […]
The market has continued to firm as steel buyers return to the market and lead times slowly begin to extend. We are also seeing a return to the more traditional spreads between hot rolled base prices and those of cold rolled and coated. The normal spread has been $100 to $120 per ton depending on […]
Flat rolled prices have begun to climb out of the hole which has been almost a year in making. Steel Market Update and Platts both saw benchmark hot rolled prices as being up $10 per ton this past week while CRU had HRC up $1 per ton. The HRC average of the three reporting indexes […]
The domestic flat rolled steel mill lead times have begun to move out, according to the results from our flat rolled steel analysis questionnaire conducted this past week. We are seeing movement on all four products: hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume. Lead times had bottomed in January and February and we started to […]
The domestic steel mills are still willing to negotiate according to the majority of last week SMU flat rolled steel market survey respondents. However, for the first time in many months we are seeing a break in the “tell me what it’s going to take” negotiating tactic and more of the “here is our bottom, […]
Licensed data for April was updated on May 5th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to our […]
Late last week I asked the vice president of one of the steel mills which had announced price increases if they were indeed collecting higher prices and we received a one word response “Yep.” Earlier today we spoke with a conversion mill about the status of their pricing and they provided a more descriptive look […]
All of the domestic steel mills located east of the Rockies (except U.S. Steel) made flat rolled price increase announcements this past week. The first steel index to note an upward move in pricing was Platts where by the end of this past week had taken their hot rolled index up $5 per ton from […]
Steel Market Update spent time over the past few days speaking with trading companies and customers who buy foreign steel to see if the flow of orders has subsided or remains in place. We were especially interested in cold rolled and coated products (galvanized and Galvalume in particular) since so much has been made about […]
The domestic mills were beginning to make moves late last week to increase steel prices. Those efforts accelerated earlier today with the announcements out of ArcelorMittal USA (internal memo), Nucor (verbal & later in a letter to their customers), NLMK USA (letter to customers). These moves have, at least temporarily, halted the slide in flat […]