The “will they or won’t they” drama around Section 232 and whether the Trump administration will place tariffs on steel imports is reaching a peak. The Department of Commerce is expected to announce its findings on the Section 232 investigation by the end of next week. According to CNBC, a draft of the report has been circulated […]
An explanation of the Key Market Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. This will explain 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. In the June […]
Holiday Schedule for Steel Market Update: We will produce a short version of our newsletter on Sunday evening, July 2. We will not produce a newsletter on Tuesday, July 4, and our offices will be closed on both Monday and Tuesday of next week in observance of the Fourth of July Holiday in the USA and […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) Publisher John Packard and Executive Editor Tim Triplett were in New York City over the past two days meeting with manufacturing companies, service centers, steel mills, trading companies and members of the financial community associated with the steel industry. We found the first words off of everyone’s lips were “what do you think […]
Last week, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted an analysis of the flat rolled steel market trends. As part of that process, we asked the 100+ companies who responded to our inquiries if quotas or tariffs would be good or bad for their company. We found the majority of the mostly manufacturers and service centers responding […]
Two Federal Reserve manufacturing indices came out this week showing a contrast between business conditions in the Richmond and Texas regions. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Manufacturing in the Fifth District improved in June with more manufacturing executives expressing optimism for the next six months. The composite index rose six points to register 7 on […]
Schnitzer Steel, a metals recycler and steel bar producer, reported its best third quarter since FY 2012. Total revenue increased 36 percent sequentially and 25 percent year-over-year to $477 million. Net income was up 50 percent from second quarter and 51 percent from Q3 2016 to $17 million. The improvement was primarily in the company’s […]
Durable goods orders, products designed to last three or more years, slipped for a second month, falling 1.1 percent in May, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Core capital goods orders, a category that tracks business investment, declined for the first time this year, inching down 0.2 percent. Airline orders drove the decline with commercial […]
,Good evening from New York City (or good morning if you are reading this in the AM). I have been in the city since Sunday evening meeting with manufacturers, service centers, trading companies, steel mills and some of the financial community. The conversations started with one word – Section – and then three numbers – […]
Last week, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted one of our flat rolled steel market trends analyses as we surveyed manufacturing companies, service centers, steel mills, trading companies and toll processors. During the process, we inquired as to whether our respondents felt the newest round (and any more to come) of steel price increases were “justified.” […]
Commercial Metals Co., Irving, Texas, plans to exit its International Marketing and Distribution Segment. As an initial step, on June 12, its CMC Cometals International subsidiary signed a definitive agreement to sell its raw materials trading division, CMC Cometals, to Traxys North America L.L. and Traxys Europe S.A., affiliates of The Carlyle Group. CMC Cometals […]
The sentiment among buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel remains largely positive, according to Steel Market Update’s latest steel market analysis, although it has dipped a bit in the past month as the industry awaits a ruling on Section 232 and whether the government will further restrict steel imports on the basis of national […]
Steel mill flat rolled lead times, which have generally trended downward this spring, my be showing early signs of lengthening, reflecting new strength in demand for domestic steel products. Mills were successful in collecting a price increase earlier in the month. Despite SMU data that shows service center inventories at “comfortable” levels, some distributors may […]
New York State legislators approved an agreement this week prohibiting foreign steel to be used for New York roads and bridges. The “Buy American” legislation requires that seven identified state agencies purchase steel and iron manufactured completely in the U.S. for infrastructure projects valued at $1 million or more. Exemptions could be granted for specific […]
JSW Steel (USA) has received approval from its board for a full-scale modernization of its Baytown, Texas, steel plate mill. The project is expected to take 20 months to complete and will result in a fully modern discrete plate mill with significantly more product offerings. “While perfecting the unique plate and contiguous pipe mill facility […]
With the announcement of a flat rolled price increase out of USS/POSCO, the table is now set for California Steel on the West Coast (which SMU’s Steel 101 workshop will be visiting on Thursday of this week), as well as the East Coast and Canadian steel mills, to make announcements of their own. Benchmark hot […]
“I bet the next increase happens later this week or at the latest next Monday,” one mill executive told Steel Market Update (SMU) earlier this week. Soon, we were hearing similar comments about new flat rolled steel prices coming from others (non-mill) in the industry. As you all are well aware by now, the U.S. […]
The steel industry has a way of surprising those who use its products. This may be especially true this year as it appears the industry is about to enter a phase not seen in decades. It is mid-June 2017 and the domestic flat rolled steel mills are raising steel prices as the U.S. Department of […]
Two new Federal Reserve manufacturing reports came out on Thursday, one rebounding and one slowing. Manufacturing activity shot up in New York State, while activity in the Philadelphia region continued to expand, but at a slower pace. Empire State Manufacturing Survey The general business conditions index leaped 21 points to 19.8, its highest level in […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been in contact with dozens of steel buyers and executives over the past 24 hours discussing the status of the flat rolled price increases, steel mill lead times and other items of interest to the steel community. Most steel buyers reported the flat rolled price increases as being in effect […]
Anxiety reigns supreme in the flat rolled steel industry as both buyers and sellers grapple with the unknowns brought on by the Section 232 investigation. One area of concern is how service centers are handling spot sales to their end user customers. In the flat rolled steel market trends analysis we performed last week, we […]
The uncertainty surrounding the Section 232 national security investigation on steel has HARDI members worried about what the steel industry will be like if the ruling favors domestic steel mills and imports are sharply curtailed. In the monthly steel conference call hosted by HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International), members talked about “chaos” and […]
We start this report with comments made by Jun Wei Yeo on iron ore and coking coal. “In April to May alone, there was an over 30 percent drop in the price of iron ore. Iron ore mining companies such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, and Brazil’s Vale are suffering simultaneous stock price declines. Most […]
While the Trump administration has proposed a complete renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), which represents domestic steelmakers, has affirmed its support for the continuation of NAFTA, albeit with some improvements and modernization to the 23-year-old trade pact. In a letter to the United States Trade […]
MSCI, Rolling Meadows, Ill., June 12, 2017— In written testimony on NAFTA renegotiation, the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) explained how uniquely successful the pact has been for North American manufacturing and urged the Trump administration to upgrade, but not endanger, the trillion dollar-plus annual trading relationship that NAFTA has established between the United States, […]
Steel Market Update received a series of questions regarding Section 232 and its potential impact on companies that fabricate steel components. We are sharing a portion of the responses to the questions from Daniel Pearson of the Cato Institute (former International Trade Commission chairman) and trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz. Following are questions we received from […]
The sentiment among buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel remains largely positive, although concerns about the Section 232 investigation, the recent mill price hike and the coming summer slowdown have dampened the outlook for the market three to six months down the road, according to the latest SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index. As a […]
Steel 232 Investigation—Update from the Front Lines By Lewis LeibowitzThe Law Office of Lewis E. Leibowitz To put the steel proceeding in context, I would like to acquaint you with a couple of other proceedings that are “proceeding” right now. We’ll see how all of these developments may fit together. First, there are important negotiations […]
Six leading steel groups in Canada, Mexico and the United States are today urging their respective governments to ensure that negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) include key tenets that would result in growing consumption of steel in North America and increasing intra-NAFTA trade and market share for NAFTA producers. In a […]
April data for Construction Put in Place (CPIP) was released by the Department of Commerce on Thursday June 1st 2017. Total construction still has positive growth but slowed to 2.5 percent year/year in the latest three months of data. Privately funded projects are the growth engine as state and local and infrastructure both had negative […]