On Tuesday (today) Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Lower. I explain our reasoning in the first article above regarding our price indices. I will do a more detailed explanation as to why we are making a change at this point in time in the coming days. Today Steel […]
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). […]
Nucor Corporation has received approval from the Federal Trade Commission for the $770 million acquisition of Gallatin Steel. The Company expects to close the deal in approximately ten days. “We are excited to be able to begin the process of integrating Gallatin Steel and our new teammates into the Nucor family,” said John Ferriola, Chairman, […]
One item I keep hearing from the service centers I speak with – and it doesn’t matter what the product is – hot rolled, galvanized, Galvalume I am hearing the same thing. Business is good, in some cases excellent, but margins are being squeezed. Competition appears to be willing to move off inventory for whatever […]
On Wednesday, Steel Market Update (SMU) participated in a monthly steel conference call hosted by the Heating, Air-conditioning , Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI). HARDI wholesalers supply galvanized sheet and coils to the mechanical contractors involved in residential, multi-family and commercial construction segments of the construction industry. Consolidation was the first topic of discussion with AK Steel […]
We anticipate closing registration for the Ft. Wayne, Indiana Steel 101 workshop on Friday of this week. We have (once again) an excellent group of companies and people registered to attend with a record number of women attending (11). If you would like to learn more about our Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals workshop […]
Steel Market Update attended the groundbreaking ceremony for Big River Steel in Osceola, Arkansas which was held on Monday, September 22nd. According to Big River Steel Chairman and CEO John Correnti (and the sign at the entrance to the work site), the mill will be making steel in 550 days. A groundbreaking ceremony is much […]
Consolidation may not be over yet. We saw a report this evening out of Minnesota about how Essar Steel Minnesota has failed to secure financing to complete the $1.8 billion taconite pellet facility. The company’s India parent company was so over-leveraged it was put on the top ten watch list by Credit Suisse one year […]
For those who are keeping track I will be in Arkansas tomorrow for the Big River Steel groundbreaking. It will be interesting to see for myself what all the fuss is about… More about the groundbreaking (and maybe some of the fuss) in Tuesday evening’s issue of SMU. We have also been working on a […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-September flat rolled steel market analysis this week. We invited slightly more than 600 companies to participate in the latest survey which analyzes various trends which affect the flat rolled steel market. One set of questions had to do with the consolidation of the steel mills as SDI and […]
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 […]
It will be interesting to see how AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) interact with the newly purchased Dearborn and Columbus steel mills. One SDI customer told us today that the mill tends to be very deliberate in their decision making process and they did not expect radical changes for a number of weeks if […]
On Monday, Nucor announced their intention to acquire Gallatin Steel and its approximately 1.8 million tons of hot rolling capacity. Today, AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) completed the purchase of the Severstal North America assets. The biggest pieces of the Severstal deal are the Dearborn steel mill, which went to AK Steel, and the Columbus […]
On Monday, Nucor announced their intention to acquire Gallatin Steel and its approximately 1.8 million tons of hot rolling capacity. On Tuesday, AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) completed the purchase of the Severstal North America assets. The biggest pieces of the Severstal deal are the Dearborn steel mill, which went to AK Steel, and the […]
Nucor announced this morning that they have reached an agreement to purchase all of the equity in Gallatin Steel for $770 million. Gallatin Steel is located in Ghent, Kentucky and has the capacity to produce approximately 1.8 million tons of hot rolled steel. Gallatin is an electric arc furnace (EAF) mini mill and complements Nucor’s […]
On Friday, Saikat Dey and nine other executive managers who operated out of the Severstal Dearborn facility were relieved of their positions. SMU sources confirmed that the top two commercial people: Sachin Shivaram and the general manager of sales, Scott Gosselin, were on the list of those not retained as the facility prepares to be […]
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 […]
Big River Steel has been granted a 28-day extension to respond to the latest lawsuit brought by rival steel mill, Nucor Corporation. Nucor filed a suit in federal court last month to block construction of the 1.3 billion steel mill and to revoke the air permit that was granted to Big River. Nucor claims the […]
Nucor Corporation has announced the promotion of Dave Sumoski to Executive Vice President of engineered bar products, including special bar quality products (SBQ) and cold finish businesses, effective September 14, 2014. Sumoski has been with Nucor since 1995 and was promoted to maintenance manager at Nucor Steel-Berkeley in 1999. In 2008 he was promoted to […]
As we look at our price indices for the week of September 8th we want to take a moment to advise our galvanized customers that we are revising our .060 G90 benchmark index to account for the change in zinc coating extras. After reviewing the changes made by the domestic steel mills we have decided […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) decided to show you an analysis of the various galvanized steel coating extras in a slightly different way. We wanted to show you the mills who extras vary from one another and those who are using extras which are produced by another mill (such as USS or Nucor). We want to […]
Buyers of galvanized steel know that one of the most critical pieces of building pricing is adding the cost charge by the steel mill to apply zinc to steel. If you have had a chance to explore the ‘Resources‘ section of the Steel Market Update website, you may have come across our Steel Mill section […]
There were no surprises raised during the most recent HARDI steel conference call conducted earlier this morning (Tuesday, August 26th). There were no surprises because on the previous call, held in July, the galvanized steel group members discussed the potential for new coating extras as zinc prices rose above $1.00 per pound. As anticipated back […]
A number of steel mills have joined Nucor and US Steel by adjusting their coating extras on galvanized steel. Wheeling Nisshin advised their customers on Monday of this week that they were going to the new U.S. Steel galvanized extras. Severstal also made adjustments to their mills extras but they did not come out with […]
Late last week both ArcelorMittal and SSAB advised their customers of their intention to raise plate prices. Both companies followed the Nucor lead which was made on Monday of this past week, to raise carbon as rolled plate by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) and alloy, heat-treated, normalized and quenched and tempered plate prices by $40 […]
U.S. Steel has begun to inform their customers of their intention to raise their zinc coating extras effective October 1, 2014. Unlike Nucor, USS did not go back to their 2011 price extras. Based on our quick analysis, the under .020” thru .018” G90 extra is being increased by $1.05/cwt or 11.3 percent. The new […]
On Friday, August 15th, Nucor Plate Mill Group announced an increase on transaction prices for all new spot orders of carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate. Carbon and alloy plate prices were increased by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt). Heat-treated plate prices were increased by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt). Late last week our SMU plate indices average […]
We are now two weeks away from the opening of our 4th Steel Summit Conference and our first two day conference. I am quite pleased at the response that we have received from a number of different fronts regarding our conference. Our conference is being held on September 3 & 4 which is only two […]
Steel Market Update communicated with a number of the galvanized steel mills and learned that galvanized steel buyers should anticipate new coating extras out of most, if not all, of the domestic steel mills. Our discussions with the galvanizing mills found conversations are being held within the mills as they question whether they should return […]
With Nucor making a move and raising their coating extras, we decided to conduct a quick review of the LME spot zinc market going back to when the previous coating extra changes were made (prices were lowered) with the announcements being made just prior to January 2012. First, we will take a look at the […]