The Department of Commerce announced on August 11 the initiation of an antidumping investigation into imports of heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipe and tubes from Korea, Mexico and Turkey and a countervailing duty investigation of imports from Turkey. The petition for the investigation was brought forth by Atlas Tube (a division of JMC […]
China made a surprise devaluation of its currency today to bolster its faltering economy. The 2 percent devaluation of the yuan will make imports to China more expensive but will make exports more attractive to international traders. The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) issued a statement today concerning today’s currency move by the Chinese […]
Recently, Steel Market Update had a conversation with trade attorney Lewis E. Leibowitz and we spoke about the purpose behind the U.S. trade laws. He told us that the impacted industry, in this case the steel industry, should be using the trade laws in order to get the “breathing room” or time needed in order […]
Over the past two months the U.S. steel industry has filed antidumping petitions on corrosion resistant (coated steels like galvanized and Galvalume) and cold rolled steels. The rumor mill has been flush with talk that a hot rolled suit will be announced as early as this week. What will the impact be on flat rolled […]
Over the weekend we received further updates on the status of the ferrous scrap markets in the United States. We learned that US Steel Granite City had no scrap buys in July and we are hearing that they are passing on offers that are $30 to $45 per gross ton lower than their last buys […]
In the first six months of this year bulk scrap exports were 6,893,000 metric tonnes for an annual rate of 13,786,000 tonnes, down by 9.1 percent from the first six months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Scrap prices are falling across the country as the August numbers begin to settle. In most regions we are seeing prices down $20 to $30 per gross ton. However, depending on the starting point, numbers are down more than $30. The other development is the numbers in the South are now more in line with […]
Olympic Steel net sales fell to $316.3 million in second quarter and dropped 9.8 percent to $661.1 million for the first half of 2015. Declines in both periods were attributed to lower shipments and lower average selling prices due in part to the impact of subsidized imports on the market. The company reported a net […]
Licensed data for July was updated on August 4th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. Steel Market Update 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 […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the month of July. Based on the just released data it appears July imports will be approximately 200,000 net tons higher than what was received during the month of June. However, when looking at imports from a 3 month moving average and […]
The Steel Summit Conference is pushing 230 people and we have 4 weeks to go. We sold out the room block for September 1st. We should (we hope) be able to get more rooms added, however the room block expires either when we sell out the revised number or on August 10th, whichever comes first. […]
Flat rolled steel prices, and the momentum associated with steel price movement, have been stuck for quite some time as you can see by our SMU Price Momentum at the top of the table below. As a result, our benchmark hot rolled price average is $3 per ton higher than what we reported at the […]
ArcelorMittal reported second quarter EBITDA of $1.4 billion and net income of $179 million. Results for the company were impacted by improved steel and mining volumes that were offset by lower price. Steel shipments totaled 22.1 million tons, up 3.4 percent year over year. Quarter sales fell 18 percent to $16.9 billion compared to $20.7 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) received this Letter to the Editor from a steel trading company executive providing an opinion on the recent slew of antidumping trade suits on flat rolled steels: First of all congratulations to Dave Phelps for his comments. As the longtime president of AIIS he has personally seen many years of domestic […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
SMU previously published this article with incorrect graphics, the corrected ones are below. Our apologies for the mistake. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the first estimate of Q2 2015 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Thursday. In the big picture, the change (delta) in GDP is equal to the […]
On June 3, 2015, six U.S. steel mills filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against corrosion resistant (referred to as CORE, which are coated steels such as galvanized and Galvalume products) steels from: China, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Italy. Late last week, attorneys representing Nucor Corporation, US Steel, Steel Dynamics, AK Steel , […]
Trading has not yet begun but ferrous scrap dealers are expecting another move lower in the scrap markets. Many are pointing to prices moving lower by $20 per gross ton or more depending on the markets. We are hearing that the South may be the weakest markets with projections of prices moving lower by $20 […]
US Steel is expecting higher steel prices and shipments in the second half of 2015 helped by the recent trade case on cold rolled steel and an upcoming trade case on hot rolled steel. The company reported a net loss of $261 million for second quarter which included a write down of $136 million on […]
The following is a “Letter to the Editor” received from David Phelps, the immediate past president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS): I feel obliged to comment on the subject of the new trade cases against CR. First of all, they are ostensibly to protect American jobs and of course, profits and production […]
U.S. Steel and four other domestic steel mills filed antidumping suits on cold rolled steel against 8 countries. The following information was released to the steel community this morning (Tuesday, July 28th). In an email last night, USS incorrectly named SSAB as one of the petitioners in the CR suit. SSAB did respond to our […]
In light of the antidumping suit which was filed by five domestic steel mills earlier today (or last night if you received the USS email), we wanted to do some analysis for our readers and take a look at the eight countries named and their participation in the CRC market. As you can see by […]
As expected, five U.S. steel mills banded together and filed an antidumping petition against cold rolled steel from: China, Russia, India, South Korea, Netherlands, Japan, United Kingdom and Brazil. Reaction from steel buyers about the scope of the cold rolled suit ranged from relatively muted to surprised. Those who had a muted response expected that […]
AK Steel blamed low prices due to high levels of unfairly traded imports for its net loss of $64 million for the second quarter of 2015. Net sales for the quarter totaled $1.69, down from $1.75 billion sequentially and $1.53 billion in Q2 2014. Average selling price of $931 per ton was down 7 percent […]
Last night (Monday, July 27th) US Steel began advising some of their customers that a cold rolled trade suit had been filed against 8 foreign countries. We have learned from other mills mentioned in the text of the USS email below, that the case is actually being filed today. Here is the full text of […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced a return to profitability with income from operations of CDN $76.3 million at the closing of its fiscal year 2015 on March 31, 2015. “Fiscal 2015 marked a turnaround for Essar Steel Algoma. Through the recently announced Modernization and Expansion Program, we expect to offer a much broader range of advanced […]
I knew the cold rolled trade suits were coming this week. It had been rumored for a couple of months just as the hot rolled trade suits are being discussed for August. It doesn’t make the day of the filing (or night and day if you received one of the USS emails last night) go […]
At this point everyone wants to know if demand is growing and are inventories at a point where buyers will need to go into the market and begin buying again. The combination of growing demand and inventories that need to be replenished will be what drives flat rolled steel prices higher. Steel Market Update looks […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has discussed with our readers, on many occasions, that there are three kinds of numbers coming out of the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding steel imports on a monthly basis. First, there are the license data requests which are published every Tuesday evening after 5 PM ET. License data is the […]