Trade discussion at the 2015 SMU Steel Summit Conference brought a number of conflicting views. Well before the Trade Panel began their formal presentations on Tuesday, attendees at the conference heard a number of comments on imports, steel overcapacity and whether the trade cases that have been initiated will help or hurt the US steel […]
For those interested in more information on the HRC trade case, the following is a reprint of the International Trade Administration Fact Sheet on the AD/CVD investigation into imports of hot rolled steel flat products from seven countries. The US DOC did decide earlier this week to allow the HRC case to move forward. ITA […]
The flat rolled steel market appears to be in a wait and see mode. Flat rolled steel prices continue to be stable to slightly weaker than what we saw a few weeks ago. Nothing dramatic is moving market momentum in one direction or another. Here is how we are seeing the market at this time: […]
Big River Steel announced a series of leadership appointments today following the unexpected death earlier this week of CEO John Correnti. Dan Murray, a member of the board, was appointed as chairman of the board of directors. Jim Bell, construction manager at Big River Steel, was elected to the board of directors. Dave Stickler, […]
A huge hole has been made in the heart the US steel industry. Big River Steel CEO John Correnti died this morning while on an out-of-town business trip. John Correnti, 68, was no stranger to the development of steel mills. His plan to build the mini-mill in Osceola, Ark. was backed by almost 50 years […]
Big River Steel CEO John Correnti died this morning. He was found dead while on an out-of-town business trip. John Correnti was the driving force behind Big River Steel, the new flat rolled mini-mill under construction in Arkansas. Prior to Big River Steel he oversaw the construction of the SeverCorr steel mill in Columbus, Mississippi […]
The Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI), a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), today announced Rick Blume, vice president, commercial, Nucor Corporation, will succeed Dan Mull, executive vice president, sales and marketing, ArcelorMittal USA, as chairman of SMDI’s Board of Directors. “We look forward to working under Rick’s leadership to further […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
On June 3rd Nucor, US Steel, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition against China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy on corrosion-resistant steels. To put this into layman’s terms the domestic mills filed a dumping (AD) and CVD suit on producers of galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) received this Letter to the Editor from a steel trading company executive providing an opinion on the recent slew of antidumping trade suits on flat rolled steels: First of all congratulations to Dave Phelps for his comments. As the longtime president of AIIS he has personally seen many years of domestic […]
On June 3, 2015, six U.S. steel mills filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against corrosion resistant (referred to as CORE, which are coated steels such as galvanized and Galvalume products) steels from: China, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Italy. Late last week, attorneys representing Nucor Corporation, US Steel, Steel Dynamics, AK Steel , […]
Cliffs Natural Resources reported a net income of $60 million for second quarter, managing a profit in the face of a challenging raw materials environment. Second quarter sales fell 33 percent on weak iron ore prices for total of $498 million, compared to $748 million in Q2 2014. CEO Lourenco Goncalves addressed the “single biggest […]
U.S. Steel and four other domestic steel mills filed antidumping suits on cold rolled steel against 8 countries. The following information was released to the steel community this morning (Tuesday, July 28th). In an email last night, USS incorrectly named SSAB as one of the petitioners in the CR suit. SSAB did respond to our […]
Last night (Monday, July 27th) US Steel began advising some of their customers that a cold rolled trade suit had been filed against 8 foreign countries. We have learned from other mills mentioned in the text of the USS email below, that the case is actually being filed today. Here is the full text of […]
Nucor Corporation announced net earnings of $124.8 million for second quarter. Sales of $4.36 billion were down 1 percent from Q1 and 18 percent from Q2 2014. Total tons shipped increased by 5 percent from first quarter to 6,055,000 tons but were down 13 percent year over year. Imports pressured average sales price per ton, decreasing […]
A quote from one of our Steel Summit 2015 keynote speakers, “Although the price of oil seems to be more tied to the dollar, there is some supply and demand factors that can impact the magnitude of the impact of the dollar’s value on the per barrel price. Therefore, we have to watch what the […]
The domestic steel mills are determined to keep pricing momentum on their side as US Steel became the first mill to announce a new round of price increases on flat rolled products. The US Steel announcement, which was made via the use of an internal memo to their sales group leaked to the industry, advises […]
Chevy is taking on the aluminum Ford F-150 with a series of ads sure to tickle consumers and annoy Ford marketers. The new ads for the Chevy Silverado poke fun at the F-150 while lauding the benefits of steel construction. The ads which are currently running in social media, point out the disadvantages of aluminum. […]
On Monday, President Obama signed into law the bill that contains the “Level the Playing Field” act. This is the bill that made some potentially significant changes to trade laws, including changing the criteria for “material injury” findings and increasing penalties for foreign respondents that do not provide information requested by the Commerce Department. This […]
The Supreme Court blocked new EPA regulation on pollutants from coal-fired power plants in a 5-4 vote on Monday. The ruling will prevent the EPA from imposing new rules designed to reduce mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis. Industries and 20 states complained that the EPA disregarded […]
The Department of Commerce said Wednesday that it will proceed on AD/CVD investigations of imports of corrosion-resistant steel products from China, India, Italy, Korea, and Taiwan. A petition to investigate the products was filed on June 3, 2015 by US Steel, Nucor, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics, and California Steel Industries. The products covered […]
Steel Market Update is pleased to introduce a new contributing writer on the HRC Futures and other futures markets. Spencer Johnson is a Risk Management Consultant with FCStone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will […]
Nucor’s second quarter guidance indicates earnings in the range of $0.20 to $0.25 per diluted share, below analyst consensus of $0.30 per share for the quarter. Earnings decreased from Q2 2014 at $0.46 per share and are comparable to $0.21 in Q1 2015. Overall operating performance is down from Q1. Prices are beginning to stabilize, […]
Steel Market Update was analyzing data from our last flat rolled market survey just as the domestic mills began announcing price increases. We thought our readers might be interested in looking at the data with us and then guess as to whether the new price increases will “stick” or falter over time. In our opinion, […]
An executive with a large service center group penned us some thoughts about the market (prior to the SSAB plate price increase) on Wednesday of this past week. “I was surprised at the June import-rate figures, with the forecast/possibility of 3+ million tons. It doesn’t seem like imports are falling as fast as expected for […]
Nucor became the first domestic steel mill to announce a second round of flat rolled steel price increases. The Nucor announcement, which was for a $20 per ton price increase, affected hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized products produced by their mills. This is the second price increase on flat rolled products since the end […]
Earlier this week, World Steel Dynamics and their friends at AMM, hosted their Steel Success Strategies conference in New York City. Over the past 40 years the conference has become a magnet for those associated with the steel industry from around the world. Not everyone can afford to attend the conference which runs about $2300 […]
One of the key items Steel Market Update watches is the spread between world hot rolled export pricing and the HRC spot price average here in the United States. The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update in order to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic […]
The “not if but when” question has been settled as the long awaited trade case filing on galvanized steel finally occurred on Wednesday. Six domestic steel mills submitted a petition to the Department of Commerce asking for the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from China, the Republic of Korea, […]
Steel Market Update will have a number of articles in today’s issue of our newsletter about the corrosion resistant trade cases filed yesterday by six U.S. steel mills. We will discuss what has to be proved, the timetable that a case goes through at both the Department of Commerce (DOC) and the International Trade Commission […]