There are situations at two mills which are causing sleepless nights for some flat rolled steel buyers. AK Steel, through the loss of their Ashland blast furnace, is helping tighten the Midwest market and keeping steel prices from plunging perhaps further than they may have otherwise. As one of our steel sources put it to […]
Nucor Chairman, President and CEO John Ferriola and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal dedicated the completed Nucor Louisiana facility in St. James Parish on Monday. The $750 million DRI plant began production in December 2013 and is Phase 1 of a potential five phase $3.4 billion project. Construction of the plant began in March 2011 at a ground […]
Australian company BlueScope Steel announced EBIT of AUD$48.7 million ($44 million) for its Hot Rolled Products North America segment for the first half of FY 2014 ending December 31, 2013. EBIT increased 48 percent from the same period in FY 2013. The segment includes a 50 percent interest in US-based North Star BlueScope Steel Ltd […]
Nucor Corp. announced the election of Gregory J. Hayes to the board of directors on Feb. 17, effective immediately. Hayes has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of United Technologies Inc. (UTC), a provider of high-technology products to the global aerospace and building systems industries, since 2008. Prior to UTC, Hayes served […]
Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC shared the following information about iron ore and busheling futures trading for the past week. Iron Ore: As always traders make a big deal about the Chinese post New Year’s holiday making a big buying push upon their return, but it appears whatever buying has been done hasn’t been […]
A locomotive operator at the Nucor Steel Arkansas Hickman facility died from a head injury Tuesday morning after the train he was riding on derailed. Mr. Thomas Dazey, 48, who has been employed at Nucor for 18 years, was pronounced dead at the scene by Mississippi County Coroner Mike Godsey. The Blytheville Courier News reported employees […]
Transactions in the ferrous scrap market are beginning to become clearer and what scrap dealers are seeing is not making them happy. Prices in the Detroit market, which tends to be one of the first markets to settle, saw an across the board decrease of $30 per ton on all grades. Busheling and shredded prices […]
I want to take a moment to thank Mark Bush, General Manager Mobile Operations for SSAB Americas as well as Brent Major of SSAB Americas for their hospitality during our tour of the SSAB Mobile steel facilities as part of our most recent Steel 101 workshop. Our group was impressed with the steelmaking as well […]
Imports of total flat rolled products increased in January to 990,803 tons from 852,840 in December. Total long products increased from 412,848 to 552,093 tons. Total sheet products as a sub set of flat rolled increased from 677,510 to 775,337 tons. Semi finished declined from 604,558 to 532.813 tons. An analysis of the 3 month […]
Earnings reports are accompanied by conference calls which allow us to get some insight on what the steel leaders are thinking about in the industry. SMU decided to look at the comments by AK Steel, Nucor, Steel Dynamics, and US Steel for ideas on where the steel industry is headed for 2014. All four of […]
Nucor reported fourth quarter earnings of $170.5 million, compared to 147.6 million in Q3 and $136.9 million in fourth quarter 2012. Full year consolidated net earnings for 2013 were $488.0 million, compared with net earnings of $504.6 million for 2012. Earnings for the year were impacted by charges associated with the dome collapse at Nucor […]
It snowed in Georgia and South Carolina today. Nucor Berkeley put out an announcement that their shipping and sales personnel had been sent home early. I thought it might be a good time to double check the forecast for Mobile for next Tuesday and Wednesday which is where we are holding our next Steel 101 […]
Big River Steel, in Osceola, Ark., moved a step closer to construction with the removal of a construction stay by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The air permit for the facility has not yet been approved but the lifting of the stay will allow the preliminary construction phase to begin. The permit was […]
Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC has the duties of outlining the hot rolled futures and busheling scrap futures markets for our readers (as well as taking a look at the financial markets, iron ore and commodities in general): On the March S+P future we closed at 1833, this is up from the 1806 level […]
Nucor reported a pump failure in an electric arc furnace (EAF) at their Decatur, Alabama facility on Tuesday, January 7. According to sources, a water cooled panel on the furnace erupted causing a small blast during the beginning of a scheduled maintenance period. No one was injured and the incident will not delay scheduled maintenance. No supply or production […]
The first couple of days of January did capture a few sales of shredded scrap into the Midwest/Ohio Valley markets. Early reports are a number of orders were taken to the domestic steel mills at higher numbers ranging from a low of up $15 to a high of up $25. This is at the low […]
Ferrous scrap prices are expected to rise as we enter the New Year. Early indications are for scrap prices to make a rather serious move as cold weather sets into the North, further reducing already weak flows of the material into the scrap yards. Prices are forecast to move a minimum of $20-$30 per gross […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained range bound over the past few days due to the Holidays and most buyers being out of the office. At the same time, U.S. Steel, NLMK USA, Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA have all come out with new base price guidance for new orders. The expectation from most buyers is for […]
On Monday, December 23, 2013 Nucor Sheet Mill Group advised their flat rolled customers that “due to higher raw material prices, the Nucor Sheet Mill Group will increase base pricing to the following levels, effective immediately:” Hot Rolled = $35.00/cwt ($700 net ton) Cold Rolled = $40.50/cwt ($810 per ton) Galvanized = $40.50/cwt ($810 per […]
A Christmas Eve start-up of the Nucor direct reduced iron (DRI) facility in St. Louis Parish, Louisiana, came off without a hitch. Within 24 hours the output quality matched best-in-class levels of Nucor’s Trinidad plant, said the company. “We are very pleased to announce this important step in executing our raw materials strategy,” said John […]
With the announcements by NLMK USA, Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA on Monday, it is quite clear that the flat rolled steel mills are marching to the same drummer when it comes to carbon sheet pricing. All of the announcements made on Monday reflected the same base price levels: Hot Rolled = $35.00/cwt ($700 per ton) […]
Natural gas future prices rose 5 percent on news from the Energy Information Administration that gas supplies fell by 285 billion cubic feet in the week ended Dec. 13. Freezing temperatures around the nation drove demand for natural gas to heat homes and businesses, creating the largest draw on gas supply in a single week, […]
Planned outages and the collapse of the storage dome at Nucor Steel Louisiana negatively impacted earnings said Nucor in its fourth quarter guidance. Earnings per diluted share are expected to be in the range of $0.30-$0.40, down from third quarter 2013 earnings of $0.46 per diluted share and fourth quarter 2012 earnings of $0.43 per […]
The marketplace is buzzing as to why the mills east of the Rockies have not yet made a price increase announcement. Someone mentioned to me last week that ArcelorMittal could not push prices higher without attracting attention to themselves due to the announced purchase of ThyssenKrupp Steel USA. AM does not want to be accused […]
The U.S. ferrous scrap market has seen prices moving higher during the first 10 days of December. We have seen shredded scrap prices moving $20 to $45 per gross ton depending on the market. Busheling has been more plentiful and has managed to remain stable to up $10 in most markets. We asked one of […]
The other day Steel Market Update wrote an article about steel buyers anticipating a flat rolled steel price increase announcement out of the domestic mills prior to the end of the year. Not everyone is a believer that will occur and we got several emails and phone calls pointing out short lead times at a […]
Michael Wagner has been appointed Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Essar Steel Algoma, pending regulatory approval. Wagner most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at SeverCorr where he was a founding member in 2005. He began his career at Bethlehem Steel and moved on to progressively advanced roles at Nucor […]
The S+P has stumbled in the last week, if you can call retracing 1.5% off the highs in a 175 percent 6 year rally stumbling! As I mentioned two weeks back, we were likely to test resistance at 1800 for a bit before retracing slightly. Since this market doesn’t even recognize retracements anymore, we didn’t […]
Negotiations on 2014 flat rolled steel contracts are heating up. Sources are advising Steel Market Update that there has been some movement in the negotiation process by the domestic mills which has allowed a number of the mills to close some 2014 business. We are also hearing from multiple sources of a move by buyers […]
Over the past few months we have seen constraints in the supply of flat rolled steel as one of the main drivers behind the higher price trend. Supply disruptions continued at a number of mills due to maintenance at Severstal, ArcelorMittal, USS and others as well as the restart associated with USS Lake Erie Works. […]