Besides working on flat rolled steel pricing for most of the week, I have also been interviewing companies by email and over the phone to learn more about demand and how demand is holding up as we get deeper into 4th Quarter 2014. This becomes an even more important topic when considering rising inventories at […]
Cliffs Natural Resources will begin using trucks to transport taconite pellets to the docks from its Minnesota facility due to rail congestion in the upper Midwest. In an announcement on Friday, the company said it will immediately begin utilizing 100 trucks per day to ship iron ore pellets from Hibbing Taconite to the Duluth-Superior harbor […]
The following article was produced by SMU contributing writer Peter Wright for our Premium level members. However, we felt that the current strengthening trend of the U.S. dollar is important for all of our readers to understand as it is impacting both commodity and steel prices and will continue to do so in the future. […]
We are in a very interesting market as many factors are influencing domestic scrap and steel prices. We discuss currency issues in tonight’s issue as the appreciating dollar means less competitive exports out of the United States but it also makes foreign steel imports more attractive to buyers. We have falling iron ore (which is […]
Contributing writer, Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC, provides a glimpse at the financial, copper, steel (hot rolled coil), iron ore and scrap markets for our readers. Mr. Marshall is well known within the futures community and is the instructor for our Managing Price Risk I & II workshops. Financial Markets: Rethinking Island Mentality The […]
In the first eight months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 10,404,531 metric tons, down by 18.7 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of August exports were 1,575,716 tonnes, this was the highest volume month of the year, beating out May by 26,000 tons. Figure 1 shows that the three month […]
Steel Market Update read an article from Reuters on Monday that referenced a CISA official who was quoted as saying that the Chinese steel mills will export less steel in 2015 than what they will end up exporting this calendar year. We asked one of our main trading sources in Asia, who trades iron ore […]
Below is an article on the Asian scrap markets from one of our contributing writers, Damon Sun of Daido International. The last few weeks were chaotic in the markets. Most Asian countries look to Taiwan for indications on market directions and a base for pricing. With the rapid decrease in prices in iron ore (abt […]
The collapse of spot iron ore prices resulted in a surge in iron ore swaps, options and futures in September. Options hit the highest ever volume at 15.6 million tonnes followed by futures at 25 million tonnes according to TSI data. In total, over 62 million tonnes of futures and derivatives were cleared by exchanges […]
The USW and Ontario officials are determined to not go down easily in the fight to keep US Steel Canada alive. The $185 million that US Steel is loaning to US Canada in DIP financing is under hot dispute by union members and the province. The DIP (debtor-in possession) filing has been called “a thinly […]
Our Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” since the last day of June 2014. We are now entering our 4th month and hot rolled steel prices have barely budged from the center line (OK, there have been some mild gyrations but no clear cut path up or down during the past three months). […]
One of the first things that we noticed when looking at the graph below is all of the “neutral” arrows (yellow arrows in SMU Pricing Momentum) going across the full spectrum of the table shown. We went back to see at what point did we move our Momentum to Neutral and found we made the […]
Essar Steel Minnesota announced Wednesday that it has secured funding to move ahead with completion of its $1.8 million taconite plant. Last month a bond deal was called off after the company failed to raise the required equity by the bond deadline. The amount of the funding was not disclosed but Essar Assistant General Counsel […]
The hot rolled futures market has been active this week. After weeks of very little movement, selling has pushed futures prices into a more dramatic backwardation. Nearby months such as November and December have fallen $7 to $632. Further down the curve, HRC prices have fallen slightly more with all months in 2015 falling $8 […]
Steel Market Update spent the last two days canvassing end users and service centers to see where flat rolled steel prices are at the moment and where they might be heading from here. We heard from many service centers and end users that business conditions and demand for their products are doing quite well. We […]
According to The Steel Index iron ore spot prices have dropped to $77.50 per dry metric tonne (dmt) for 62% Fe fines CFR Tianjin Port, China. This is the 52-week low for ore trading which is suffering from a slowdown in the Chinese economy. Iron ore has been on a steady decline since the beginning […]
Ferrous scrap prices for October, which a couple of weeks ago were being forecast to move sideways (no change), are now looking as though they will drop $10 to $30 per gross ton. The Midwest and Southeast are expected to see the least price movement while those areas associated with exports (such as the East […]
Andre Marshall, an active futures trader and owner of Crunch Risk, LLC, provided the following recap of hot rolled futures, iron ore and scrap as well as some words regarding the financial markets and copper trading. Here is what he shared with SMU this evening: Financial Markets: Well today saw a pretty big drop in […]
Steel buyers think the domestic mills are riding high at today’s prices. Iron ore prices are dropping, coking coal is down and scrap has been treading water and the word is it may dip a bit as we enter the month of October. Steel buyers think the mills are floating on the top of the […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of August 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in August were 74,880,000 metric tons, a decrease of 9.3 percent from the previous month but an increase of 8.5 percent […]
Earlier today one of the steel analysts shared the most recent world production data for the month of August. Chinese mills now produce 51.1 percent of all of the world”s steel. However, the Chinese markets are slowing and the question is what (or where) will the Chinese mills be able to ship steel by the […]
Nucor is expecting higher profitability for its sheet steel, structural, bar and plate operations for third quarter. In their quarterly guidance, Nucor noted that manufactured goods, including energy and automotive, are their strongest markets. The high level of imports continues to pressure prices downward. Growth in the residential market has benefited the fabricated construction products […]
US Steel announced today that as part of its strategic transformation effort it will no longer pursue the expansion of its Keetac iron ore pellet operations at Keewatin, Minn., or continue additional investments into the carbon alloy facility at Gary Works. The expansion at Keetac was intended to upgrade and restart the idled pelletizing line […]
The following report was prepared by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk, LLC which is a company specializing in hot rolled, ferrous scrap and other “futures” contracts or financial derivatives. Today he discusses the broader financial markets, hot rolled steel futures (HRC), iron ore and ferrous scrap futures (BUS) trading on the CME. Andre Marshall […]
With iron ore approaching $80 per dry metric ton for spot 62% Fe fines in China (according to our Asian iron ore trading source as well as The Steel Index), I asked John Eckstein, retired metallurgist last with Severstal Sparrows Point and one of our Steel 101 instructors, to comment on the changes the price […]
For months there have been rumors circulating in the marketplace that the domestic steel industry was contemplating filing dumping suits against the Chinese on cold rolled and potentially a number of Asian countries on galvanized and/or Galvalume products. To date there have not been suits filed and the foreign steel continues to arrive at ever-greater […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of July 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in July were 82,520,000 metric tons, an increase of 10.7 percent from the previous month and an increase of 12.8 percent […]
Steel Market Update featured Timna Tanners, Metals & Mining Analyst, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, and John Anton, Director of Steel Services, IHS Global, at a luncheon presentation at the recent Steel Summit. The topic was commodity and steel forecasts and consolidation of the industry. As usual the two disagreed on some topics and sparked some […]
On Monday Steel Market Update received information from one of our trading sources in Asia regarding the iron ore situation and price offers for export on rebars (debars), hot rolled (Europe) and plate (Europe). Ore Port Stocks at 110.95 Million MTS on Friday and an increase of 320,000mts week on week. Many large State Owned […]
Iron ore spot pricing CFR Tianjin port, China was reported by The Steel Index on Friday morning to be $83.6/dmt for 62% Fe fines. During the past week, iron ore pricing has dropped $4.30/dmt or about 5 percent. Over the past 4 weeks, spot pricing has dropped $12.1/dmt or, 12.6 percent. To put this into […]