The domestic steel mills announced new $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) price increases on flat rolled this past week. This is the second price increase on flat rolled over the past two months. The domestic mills, led by ArcelorMittal USA, announced $40 per ton spot base price increases on Oct. 24-25 and were able to collect […]
Steel Market Update was working on an article predicting a flat rolled price increase very soon when we received notice about 5 p.m. ET this evening that the Nucor Sheet Mill Group was raising base prices of flat rolled by a minimum of $40 per ton, effective immediately. This is the second flat rolled price […]
This afternoon Nucor Plate Mill Group increased prices for all plate products by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt). The follows a $40 per ton increase on plate by Evraz North America dated Oct. 28, 2019. The Nucor increase is to be effective “immediately” and impacts all transaction (spot) prices on new orders of carbon, alloy and […]
Despite the Oct. 28 plate price increase announcement out of Evraz ($40/ton), plate prices continue to be under pressure. [Please note: This article was completed just prior to the Nucor $40 price increase announcement, which was made on plate products at 4 p.m. this afternoon.] A large plate buyer told SMU they had just received […]
Ferrous scrap prices are expected to rise by about $20/GT in November, lending support to the increase in flat rolled prices announced by the mills last week. “With mills seeking the price hike, they are unlikely to push scrap lower. It would make their negotiating position more difficult,” said Ryan McKinley, CRU North America analyst. […]
Nucor Steel Arkansas opened its new cold mill complex at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Oct. 25. The $230 million specialty cold mill will expand Nucor’s capability to produce high strength, high-strength low-alloy and motor lamination steel products for the automotive industry. “As a world leader in steel manufacturing technology, Nucor is particularly focused on […]
Four more mills–Nucor, U.S. Steel, USS-Posco and Algoma Steel–raised prices on their flat rolled products by $40 per ton ($2/cwt) Friday, following on similar announcements by ArcelorMittal and NLMK USA the day before. The mills are hoping to reverse the slide that has taken the benchmark price of hot rolled steel from more than $700 […]
Nucor and U.S. Steel raised prices on their flat rolled products by $40 per ton ($2/cwt) today, following on similar announcements by ArcelorMittal and NLMK USA yesterday. The mills are hoping to reverse the slide that has taken the benchmark price of hot rolled steel from more than $700 per ton to less than $500 […]
ArcelorMittal USA announced a $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) price increase today, which is in line with our expectations that an increase was inevitable based on comments from service centers and manufacturing companies responding to our flat rolled steel market trends questionnaires over the past few weeks. By the end of the day, NLMK USA had […]
Over the past couple of weeks, Steel Market Update has been suggesting flat rolled steel prices were at a bottom and the domestic steel mills would soon announce price increases. Today, ArcelorMittal USA began advising customers of their intention to raise prices by $40 per ton. By the end of the workday, NLMK USA had […]
By John Packard, President & CEO, Steel Market Update On Monday, I spoke to the North American Steel Alliance (NASA) in Chicago. My comments centered on a wide variety of proprietary indices Steel Market Update produces–our flat rolled and plate indices, SMU Sentiment Index, SMU Service Center Inventories and Shipments data, Mill Lead Times and […]
Steel price volatility was persistent in 2019, said CRU Principal Analyst Josh Spoores at the FMA/ASD Executive Networking Series held in Pittsburgh last week. U.S. economic growth was below the historical trend throughout 2019, but has improved since April, according to the Chicago Fed National Activity Index. Activity in two key steel sectors, fabricated metal products and […]
Nucor reported a decline in financial results as expected for the third quarter of 2019. Net earnings were $275 million, down from $386.4 million in Q2 and $676.7 million in Q3 2018. Consolidated net sales fell 7 percent from the previous quarter to $5.46 billion. Steel shipments to outside customers declined 7 percent from last […]
There was much discussion at the NASA conference and in the wake of the conference regarding scrap pricing and where prices are headed for the month of November. The discussion on scrap has been a moving target over the past week or two. We checked with some of our sources earlier this month and we […]
I thought John Ferriola’s comments at the World Steel Association would be of interest to our readers. Joe Innace of Platts interviewed Nucor’s Ferriola and reported him saying, “The rest of this year will be pretty flat. Going into next year, it’s really a crapshoot.” He told Platts Nucor’s downstream businesses have seen prices drop, […]
John Packard is traveling… Here’s what readers of Steel Market Update have learned this week. Steel prices continue to slide. By Steel Market Update’s calculation, the benchmark price for hot rolled steel now averages $515 per ton. That’s the lowest in 2019. Given the widespread reports of disappointing demand, worsened by the strike at GM […]
JSW USA has filed a challenge to a tariff exclusion denial with the U.S. Court of International Trade. In the first tariff exclusion case to reach the USCIT, JSW claims that Commerce ignored evidence presented regarding the domestic availability of steel slab. The company is requesting a refund of the tariffs it was required to pay. […]
SMU continues to pick up negative vibes through the analysis we currently are actively conducting on the flat rolled and plate steel markets. There is obviously something going on that is concerning buyers and sellers of steel. At the same time, one of the steel mills told me today that even though prices on their […]
With U.S. Steel buying almost 50 percent of Big River Steel and holding an option on the remainder over the next four years, SMU thought it an appropriate time to review the list of announced changes being made by the mills in the United States, Canada and Mexico. We reviewed this listing with the four […]
Steel Market Update reported in the last issue on the sudden closing of Bayou Seel in Louisiana, and a few readers took issue with some comments in the article (Trade War Contributes to Bayou Steel’s Demise). In statements that were widely reported, Gov. John Bel Edwards blamed the closure on the Trump administration tariffs. The […]
Our last issue sparked our readers to comment on a couple of topics. We addressed the Bayou Steel comments in another article in tonight’s issue. I will address the comments I received from U.S. Steel regarding their purchase of a portion of Big River Steel and the exposure to electrical steels (something I have never […]
The news today that U.S. Steel plans to purchase a 49.9 percent interest in Big River Steel, with an option to buy the rest within the next four years, surprised the market. But most of the steel buyers polled by Steel Market Update view the pairing of one of the nation’s oldest integrated producers with […]
U.S. Steel did what many analysts thought was impossible – they announced they are acquiring a 49.9 percent interest in Big River Steel. I wrote about this last week as a possibility and mentioned some of the reasons at that time why this deal might happen. According to Big River Steel’s announcement, the $700 million […]
Virgin steel is made with iron ore, coke and limestone. It was done that way, and only that way, for many decades. Then along came the “mini” mills. So-called minimills recycle ferrous scrap, mixing it with pig iron or other iron units and melting it down in large electric arc furnaces to produce new steel. […]
Virgin steel is made with iron ore, coke and limestone. It was done that way, and only that way, for many decades. Then along came the “mini” mills. So-called minimills recycle ferrous scrap, mixing it with pig iron or other iron units and melting it down in large electric arc furnaces to produce new steel. […]
I received numerous notes regarding a hot strip mill outage at AMNS Calvert, which began last week. Based on reports from steel buyers, the HSM outage was expected to last for about one week. We asked ArcelorMittal for information and confirmation yesterday, but they failed to respond. Today, we received information that the Calvert lead […]
U.S. Steel is feeling the pain of falling steel prices and deteriorating market conditions. The company expects an earnings loss of 35 cents per diluted share for the third quarter of 2019 compared to a profit of 39 cents per share in the second quarter. The company followed Nucor and Steel Dynamics in lowering guidance […]
Nucor expects a weaker performance from its steel mills segment in the third quarter due to lower prices for sheet and plate steel. “Although we still see stability in most of the end-use markets that we serve, there has been some softening in automotive, agricultural products and power transmission markets,” said the company in guidance […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan Smith Most people believe that minimills, which remelt scrap in electric arc furnaces, have a big cost advantage over integrated mills, which feed ore and coking coal into giant blast furnaces. But such conventional thinking is an oversimplification of the cost comparison. Based on site costs alone, and where steelmaking […]
A number of maintenance outages are scheduled at U.S. steel mills in the coming months with the majority to occur in October. Blast furnaces at AK Steel Dearborn, ArcelorMittal Cleveland and Burns Harbor, and U.S. Steel Gary Works are scheduled for maintenance in October, representing an estimated 495,050 tons of steel capacity temporarily removed from the […]