The spread between world hot rolled export pricing and that of the domestic average here in the United States is shrinking based on our analysis of steel pricing data from this week. As the spread shrinks, the competitiveness of imported steel into the United States is reduced. Over time, if the trend continues, the domestic […]
The fall in hot rolled futures prices seems to have slowed with the CRU down only $6/ton this week compared to an $18/ton drop the week prior. The second half of the year seems to have stabilized with trades being done at $570-575/ton for Q3 and Q4. The near term remains softer with bids retreating […]
Steel imports continue to flood U.S. shores and were a priority issue for CEOs during earnings calls this month. Low cost imports are creating competition for market share as well as depressing prices in the carbon steel spot market. Nucor CEO John Ferriola summed up the current market condition: “The other major headwind is from […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of December 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in December were 86,850,000 metric tons, an increase of 28.9 percent from the previous month and an increase of 18.4 percent […]
Turmoil continues in the global currency markets as the European Central Bank announced a quantitative easing program last week, S&P downgraded Russian debt to junk status yesterday, the Greek national election on Sunday will result in a strong resistance to EU mandated austerity programs and the Swiss removed the currency cap vs the Euro last […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update. An explanation of the Index is provided at the end of this piece. Index shows economic growth slowed in […]
AK Steel and Nucor spend time on their earnings conference calls earlier today to point out the negative impact imports were having on their business and steel pricing. James Wainscott talked about imports during his opening statements, “Between 2013 and 2014 flat-rolled finished carbon steel imports rose by some 60%. For the year, we saw […]
AK Steel CEO, James Wainscott, spoke to analysts this morning regarding AK Steel 4th Quarter and calendar year 2014 earnings. We have a separate article which speaks to their earnings. What we have done is to point on some of the highlights of the call from our perspective: AK Steel did a major reline of […]
Nucor Corp. reported net earnings of $210.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to $245.4 million in the third quarter of 2014 and $170.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. The drop was expected due to typical seasonality in the fourth quarter and downward pressure on the industry from steel imports. Net […]
AK Steel claimed its best quarter in three and a half years and its best annual performance since 2008. AK Steel reported shipments of 2,010,200 tons in fourth quarter 2014 compared to 1.42 million tons in Q4 2013. The increase exceeded analyst expectations and was due primarily to strong demand from automotive and the addition […]
US Steel earnings reported 2014 net income of $102 million, attributing its Carnegie Way for its first profitable year since 2008. In 2013, US Steel reported a full-year net loss $1.645 billion that included $1.5 billion in impairment and restructuring costs. Net income for fourth quarter was $275 million, compared to $297 million in Q4 […]
In another article in tonight’s newsletter we report on the production statistics based on AISI data. Essentially, production is up a couple of percent while at the same time, in another article, we report on foreign steel imports which are up 38 percent. I don’t know if the domestic steel mills will file dumping suits […]
The following article on the futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk, LLC. Financial Markets: The S&P continues to perform, we are last 2054 on the March futures after testing our recent low at 1981 on the 16th. It looks like we are headed back to take out the highs at […]
The three T’s, taxes, trade and transportation, are top issues the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) hoped would be addressed by President Obama in the State of the Union address earlier this week. AISI president and CEO Thomas Gibson expressed disappointment in the President’s address which had some “positive elements for the manufacturing sector” […]
US Steel told employees it will idle operations in Illinois and Indiana, laying off 545 workers. The newest cuts follow the layoff of 756 workers at its tubular plants in Ohio and Texas earlier this month due to decreased demand from oil prices and the surge in lower cost imports. Two coke ovens at Granite […]
Benchmark hot rolled coil prices dropped again this week as buyers struggled with an oversupplied HRC market due to high service center inventories, a continuation of high foreign imports and the collapse of the OCTG and line pipe markets due to weak oil prices. Couple those three items with more domestic supply than necessary for […]
A lot has already been written about the dramatic decline in oil prices, the persistent high imports of energy tubulars, and related issues. What is missing, in my opinion, is some perspective and context to pull it all together. The purpose of this article is to show why the energy sector is so important to […]
Gulf ports are not experiencing the horrific congestion issues seen in the West. Fleetwood Port Logistics, out of Houston and Savannah, that deals primarily in break bulk steel products, has seen little to no congestion at the primary discharge terminal of North City Docks, Port of Houston. There has been some congestion at the smaller […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated its import license data earlier today. January import levels continue to be at very high levels compared to November and December and very similar to what we saw in September when imports totaled 3.9 million net tons. The daily rate is about 10,000 tons per day higher than November […]
EVRAZ North America produced 1.999 million tonnes (2.2 million net tons) of crude steel in 2014, down 8.8 percent from the total in 2013. Crude steel production increased by 5.7 percent to 528,000 tonnes (582,000 tons) in the final quarter of 2014 as compared to third quarter 2014. Finished steel products slipped 8 percent y/y […]
All of the flat rolled steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down by double digits. Exactly where hot rolled prices are seems to be debatable as we have a $43 per ton spread between the low (Platts at $565) and the high (SteelBenchmarker at $608). Since […]
The following article is a continuation of our Steel Buyers Basics series written by Mario Briccetti. Mario is Principal of Briccetti & Associates, a Supply Chain consulting firm, and can be reached at Mario@mbriccetti.com. Briccetti wrote the following article as part of our Steel Buyers Basics series of articles, many of which can be found […]
The spread between world hot rolled export pricing and that of the domestic average here in the United States is shrinking based on our analysis of steel pricing data from this week. As the spread shrinks, the competitiveness of imported steel into the United States is reduced. Over time, if the trend continues, the domestic […]
Margins are being compressed at the secondary steel services centers according to SMU secondary market sources. However, unlike prime flat rolled steel where we find prices have been in steady decline for a few months, secondary or non-prime flat rolled steel pricing did not begin to erode until right after the beginning of the New […]
A paradigm shift seems to be underway in the HRC futures market now that prices have broken through the critical support level of $600. The CRU is now at $584, which is down over 10 percent from around $665 just three months ago. With futures contracts trading at $580 per ton for the first half […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been dropping over the past few weeks and the wholesalers who service the mechanical contractors are concerned as the pace of the price decline quickens. Earlier today Steel Market Update participated in the HARDI sponsored galvanized steel conference call. HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International) wholesalers supply galvanized sheet and […]
The following article comes to us from one of our Asian scrap sources, Damon Sun of Daido International. The Asian scrap market is a bit quiet and continued slow downtrend as scrap metal pricing tries to find parity with iron ore. A rough calculation of scrap to iron ore is a ratio of 3.5 to […]
This is another article which generally goes strictly to our Premium level members. Steel Market Update looks at data in a number of different ways. We look at imports on a weekly basis and report on the trends for license data, we look at monthly data and how it relates to the prior month and […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated the import license data earlier this afternoon. Based on data collected through January 13, 2015, import licenses are lower at this point in the month than what we saw in September, October, November and December. Licenses for all steel products totaled 100,264 net tons which is much lower than […]
In previous months we have reported on steel mill shipments and total supply to the market separately in alternate months with reference to imports which account for most of the difference. In future we will report on shipments and supply in one single report to measure the degree to which imports have absorbed the increased […]