Last week the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported shipments and inventories for the month of July. We produced an article that normally goes to our Premium level members only last week but, one of our clients requested that we produce the report in the format we normally use for our Executive level members. Here […]
Olympic Steel, a leading national metals service center, announced the promotion of Andrew Greiff to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Office, as of August 19, 2016. Greiff joined Olympic Steel in 2009 and was promoted to President, Specialty Metals in 2011. In that role he managed sales and distribution of stainless steel and aluminum […]
The pace of the slippage in flat rolled prices accelerated this past week with many products being reported down $10 per ton or more by the indexes followed by SMU. Benchmark hot rolled was reported to be $15 per ton lower by Platts at $590 per ton while SMU had it down $5 to $595 […]
Canadian shipments for all steel products in the month of July were 318,700 net tons, a decrease of 14.8 percent from the month before and a decrease of 14.9 percent from July 2015. Inventories at the end of the month stood at 1,100,800 tons, down 1.8 percent from last month and down 25.6 percent from […]
We normally reserve our expanded service center data analysis for our Premium members but felt this would be a good piece to share with all of our members. Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments declined by 443,300 […]
China has issued a new policy that outlines steps it will take to address overcapacity in major industrial areas. The report focuses on adherence to market rules and environmental and energy guidelines with punishment for those who fail to meet governmental standards. China has pledged to reduce overcapacity by 2020 in the iron and steel, […]
Flat rolled steel prices slipped across the board this past week as the domestic steel mills became more aggressive in order to finish filling their August order books (hot rolled) as well as September (cold rolled and coated). For the first time in many months, Steel Market Update adjusted our hot rolled and cold rolled […]
Another round of antidumping duties was imposed on hot rolled steel products on Tuesday, August 9, but this time from the Commerce Ministry of India. India slapped duties of hot rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel from China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia. The duties range between $474-557 per tonne. Duties of […]
We thought now would be a good time to revisit each of the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty trade suits associated with flat rolled steel or plate to report exactly where each one stands at this time. We are reaching the point where most will be through the entire process with the last step being […]
We saw minor erosion in hot rolled prices this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Both our own index as well as Platts dropped their HRC average by $5 per ton. As of the end of last week Steel Market Update was showing hot rolled as averaging $610 per […]
SMU Sources are advising us that obsolete grades of ferrous scrap are trading sideways (prices remaining the same as last month) while prime grades move lower by $10 to $15 per gross ton in the Chicago, Ohio Valley, Detroit and Indiana markets. Prior to negotiations beginning, the expectation was for obsolete grades to remain intact […]
NLMK USA flat steel product sales grew by 11 percent in second quarter 2016. Sales for the first half of 2016 were up 9 percent to 1 million tonnes (1.2 million net tons). One hundred percent of NLMK USA products are sold domestically to the processing, pipe, and automotive industries. North American sales for second […]
Olympic Steel announced net income of $3.6 million in the second quarter 2016, up substantially from the $22.3 million loss in Q2 2015. Consolidated net sales for the quarter were $273.6 million. Second quarter shipments of carbon flat products totaled 272,000 tons, up 2 percent from first quarter, and 2 percent below Q2 2015. Net […]
Flat rolled steel prices are relatively stable for yet another week according to the various steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. SMU took two items slightly lower: cold rolled ($815/ton) and Galvanized .060” G90 ($880/ton). SteelBenchmarker, who only reports prices twice per month, saw hot rolled down $4/ton ($624/ton) and cold rolled was off […]
SSAB Americas results in improve in second quarter due to higher volumes and prices. Sales were SEK 2.8 billion ($323 million) compared to SEK 2.4 billion ($277 million) in first quarter. Shipments improved 11 percent to 526,000 tonnes from 475,000 tonnes in Q1. The company reports good demand from steel service centers and the wind […]
CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 20, 2016 — Nucor Corporation announced today that it has agreed to acquire Joy Global’s steel plate mill in Longview, Texas, for approximately $29 million. The mill produces carbon and alloy plate products with heat-treating capabilities and has an annual capacity of 180,000 tons. “This acquisition builds on our strategy to capture […]
Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments increased by 169,300 tons in June to 3.220 million tons. The number of shipping days increased by one to 22. On a t/d basis shipments increased from 145,200 in May to […]
The spread between hot rolled and cold rolled/coated steels continues to be at dangerous (my opinion) levels. The U.S. steel industry has been systematically “building a dam” (Lewis Leibowitz words) around this country in order to prevent what they call unfairly subsidized and unfairly traded plate, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. The […]
U.S. steel service centers shipped a total of 3,385,100 net tons of all steel products during the month of June 2016 according to recently released data from the Metal Service Center Institute. This is 5.1 percent lower than one year ago. The daily shipment rate was 153,900 tons up slightly from the 152,600 tons shipped […]
Canadian shipments for all steel products in the month of June were 374,100 net tons, a decrease of 3.7 percent from the month before and a decrease of 14.4 percent from June 2015. Inventories at the end of the month stood at 1,120,500 tons, down 2.6 percent from last month and down 26.0 percent from […]
United States Steel (USS) has filed a motion to reverse the judge’s decision to suspend the Section 337 investigation pending consultation with the Commerce Department. US Steel was not the only entity which felt the investigation should continue, the Office of Unfair Import Investigations which is part of the International Trade Commission (ITC) also filed […]
Flat rolled steel industry participants continue to be optimistic about the markets, according to the recent flat rolled market trends analysis conducted by Steel Market Update. However, we are seeing a slightly less optimistic trend for this time of year compared to what we were reporting at the same point in time in 2014 and […]
As reported last week, obsolete grades of ferrous scrap came under price pressure as negotiations concluded for July deliveries. Prime grades, however, saw prices move sideways as the spread between shredded scrap and primes increased. The product that saw the most movement was shredded due to excessive inventories and little movement on the export front […]
Since 2008, Steel Market Update has been measuring how steel buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the existing market environment (which we call “Current Sentiment”). We also probe the same group of manufacturers, steel service centers, steel mills, trading companies and toll processors on how they feel about their […]
Licensed data for June was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on July 5th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of June were 2,169,434 […]
Licensed data for July was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on August 2nd. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of July were […]
Flat rolled steel prices seem to have stabilized, even if there was some see-sawing among the indexes followed by Steel Market Update this past week. Benchmark hot rolled prices are hovering close to $630 per ton with SMU ($627.50 per ton), SteelBenchmarker ($627) and Platts ($630) all within $3 per ton of each other. Last […]
Steel Market Update received the following question from one of our new readers who has a specific project related to sourcing of hot rolled and cold rolled steels from outside of the United States. Based on our conversation with the reader we believe this question is being raised at this time due to the wide […]
Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments decreased by 41,100 tons in May to 3.050 million tons. The number of shipping days was he same at 21. On a tons per day (t/d) basis shipments decreased from 147,200 […]
There was very little movement in the SMU and Platts indices this past week. SteelBenchmarker, which only produces their index pricing twice per month, saw a modest rise in their numbers as they catch up with the other indices in the market. Hot rolled is about as close as it has been in many months […]