Essar Steel Minnesota has requested an investigation of Cliffs Natural Resources for violation of antitrust laws. Lawyers for the company filed a motion in bankruptcy court claiming that Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves interfered with state mineral leases and contract negotiations with ArcelorMittal in an effort to thwart the completion of Essar’s iron ore plant. The […]
Iron ore mining company Magnetation announced on Friday that it may shutdown its Minnesota iron ore concentrate plant, rail loading facility and Pellet Plant located in Reynolds, Indiana on or after September 30, 2016. The company intends to continue normal operations until that time. WARN notices have been issued to local officials and the International […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of July 2016, providing updated data on iron ore imports, scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in July were 88,400,000 metric tons, an increase of 8.3 percent from the previous month and an increase of 2.7 percent from […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. It is important to understand the difference between our view of the present situation which is subjective and our analysis of trends which is based on the latest facts available. The total […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel A trickle of bullish news for steel helping to push values higher on very light HR futures volume and reduced selling interests. […]
Cliffs Natural Resources recorded another successful quarter with net income of $30 million for continuing operations compared to a net loss of $38 million in Q2 2015. Adjusted EBITDA was $102 million, driven by higher domestic steel prices. EBITDA included idle expenses of $20 million for the Northshore and United Taconite mines. US iron ore […]
The Broad Index value of the US $ is reported several days in arrears, the latest value we have was dated July 15th (Figure 1). Our previous report was current as of June 26th which shortly followed the FOMC meeting of June 14th and 15th at which it was decided not to raise rates. This […]
Essar Steel Minnesota has named a new CEO to take the company through it restructuring process. The company, which declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 8, has selected Matthew Stock to replace Mandhu Vuppuluri as CEO, effective immediately. Stock has 25 years of experience in the steel and metals mining business including leading efforts […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall and Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how they saw trading over the past week: It has been a quiet week in Hot Rolled futures (HRC) with 13,380 short tons (ST) trading.Until […]
Ontario Steel Investment says it signed a letter of intent with USW Local 2251 for the acquisition of Essar Steel Algoma. Ontario Steel says it will assume all employer liabilities for Essar Steel Algoma’s pension plan in return for a purchase price of US $900 million for the acquisition of the company. Ontario Steel is […]
Essar Steel Minnesota entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday after the state of Minnesota revoked the company’s mining leases. Essar Steel Minnesota was given an extension to July 1 after missing a May 1 deadline to pay off its creditors and prove it could finance a plan to complete its promised taconite operation. Essar […]
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has asked the state’s members of Congress to begin the process of obtaining funding for a renovation of the Soo Locks. “The Soo Locks are crucial shipping link for some our nation’s biggest industries,” said Snyder. “The increase in outages from maintenance, redundancy and capacity issues poses significant economic consequences for […]
Spot market prices continue to rise in the seaborne freight market according to the June MID-SHIP Report. As of July 4, the Baltic Dry Index was at 688, nowhere near its five year high on December 13, 2014 but well above its trough of 290 on February 11, 2016. The BDI tracks shipping rates for […]
This Key Markets Indicator report is something we produce for our Premium level clients. However, we thought that our Executive level readers would appreciate knowing… 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 […]
The following article is by contributing writer Damon Sun of Daido International. Several key elements has happened in the last few weeks in the ferrous markets in Asia: 1) China Customs Bureau has started inspections for alloy content in the export of billets (square bars). The export tax rebate (9%) is applicable only to alloy […]
The Broad Index value of the US $ is reported several days in arrears, the latest value we have was dated June 24th, the day that the result of the UK’s referendum became known. There was no significant move in the value of the dollar on that day which may have been published before the […]
The United Kingdom surprised the world by voting for an exit from the European Union on Thursday. Steel Market Update asked John Anton, Principal Economist-Steel at IHS Global Insight to provide us his insights into what this might mean for the global market. GDP growth in the EU27 is expected to lose 0.2 percent in […]
Essar Steel Algoma filed a formal motion for approval of the sale of the company to KPS Capital. The asset purchase agreement will sell the assets of Algoma for a combination of cash sufficient to pay the outstanding liabilities under the DIP facility, a credit bid of the term loan debt, and assumption of certain […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of May 2016, providing updated data on iron ore imports, scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in May were 86,750,000 metric tons, an increase of 3.4 percent from the previous month and an increase of 22.4 percent from […]
Cliffs Natural Resources’ supply agreement with ArcelorMittal “put the final nail in the coffin of Essar Steel Minnesota.” That is the opinion of Star Tribune columnist, Lee Schafer. Schafer has a point, with Cliffs gobbling up Northern steel mill contracts, Essar will have no customers even if it is able to pull itself out of […]
Freight levels for dry bulk cargo are slowly recovering from the historic lows seen in first quarter of this year, according to the most recent MID-SHIP Report. The dry bulk market continues to suffer from an oversupply of vessels and slow demand growth, although rates are generally holding firm in most of the seabourne markets. […]
Cliffs Natural Resources announced today that it will restart its United Taconite mining facility in August. The restart was originally scheduled for October but will occur two months early due to additional pellet tonnage ordered by US Steel Canada. Cliffs is revising its 2016 sales volume guidance to 18 million tonnes from 17.5 million tonnes. […]
SMU Price Momentum continues to reflect the strength of steel mills as we expect prices to continue to rise over the next 30 days. Our Price Momentum Indicator has been pointing toward higher prices since early December 2015 (6 months and counting). Although our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index took a hit in May for both […]
China steelmakers are denouncing charges of wrong doing levied by US Steel in its Section 337 filing. The ITC said last week that it will pursue the investigation that charges Chinese steel producers stole trade secrets, engaged in price fixing and participated in transshipment and duties evasion. One of the respondents in the investigation, Wuhan […]
ArcelorMittal USA and Cliffs Natural Resources have entered into a new long-term iron ore supply agreement that will run through 2026. The new agreement replaces two existing agreements that expire Dec. 2016 and Jan. 2017 and fills the entirety of ArcelorMittal’s pellet purchase requirements from the previous contracts. Cliffs Natural Resources will supply 7 to […]
Figure 1 shows published data for the growth of GDP, industrial production and consumer prices through the first quarter of 2016. The GDP and industrial production portions of this graph are three month moving averages. The growth of GDP was 6.7 percent in the first quarter, down from 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, and […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
One of the most important indices a steel buyer (or seller) can follow is that of the value of the U.S. dollar vs. the currency of the key steel trading nations. As the dollar value rises or falls, commodities, including steel, tend to be affected. Currency update articles are normally reserved for our Premium Members […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of April 2016, providing updated data on iron ore imports, scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in April were 83,920,000 metric tons, a decrease of 2.2 percent from the previous month but an increase of 4.6 percent from […]