According to a media reports, Essar Steel Algoma is in talks with senior lenders regarding entering insolvency. Bloomberg sources say a court filing is possible within the next month. Reuters said the company has hired law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP and restructuring specialists Evercore Partners Inc. to advise it. Canadian steelmaker, Essar Steel […]
Hot rolled prices are poised to crash through the $400 per ton ($20.00/cwt) barrier and head toward lows not seen since 2009 when SMU’s HRC average briefly reached $380 per ton ($19.00/cwt). This past week SMU saw flat rolled steel and plate prices drop on all of the indexes followed by SMU except SteelBenchmarker which […]
“The UK steel industry is struggling for survival in the face of extremely challenging market conditions.” That’s how Tata Europe CEO Karl Koehler summed up the condition of the industry that is facing an onslaught of cheap steel imports, particularly from China, high energy costs and a weak export market due to a strong British […]
Swedish steel company SSAB posted a loss of SEK 191 million ($22.4 million*) in third quarter. Earnings were down by SEK 600 million ($70.4 million) due to lower margins on heavy plate in North America, the costs of relining the blast furnace in Lulea, and negative currency effects. The company plans to cut approximately 500 […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 23, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 787 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is unchanged overall compared to last week, with oil rigs down 1 to 594 rigs, gas rigs up 1 to 193 rigs, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at […]
The difference between auto industry and steel industry: the UAW has issue a notice to GM that they could walk out at midnight tonight (Sunday) if they don’t have a contract. The USW is content to work under the old contract for as long as they can get away with it since both US Steel […]
This report is a trial balloon and we ask your opinion as to whether such an analysis for the three major sheet products would be of interest. If so, we would go to the expense of purchasing data from the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau, in the UK for the global trade of HR, CR […]
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 55,000 tons in September to 3.105 million tons. Shipping days at 21, were unchanged from August. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments decreased from 150,500 tons in […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their downward spiral this past week based on our analysis of the four steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. We will be watching prices closely over the next week or two to see if we breach the psychological $400 per ton number on benchmark hot rolled coil. We have […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 16, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 787 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 8 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 10 to 595 rigs, gas rigs up 3 to 192 rigs, and […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released shipment and inventory data for the month of September from their member companies earlier today. Service centers shipped 3,260,800 tons during the 21 days available to ship during the month. This equates to a daily shipment rate of 155,276 tons of all steel products combined. Shipments were down […]
Canadian shipments for all steel products in the month of September were 451,600 net tons, an increase of 5.5 percent from the month before but a decrease of 8.7 percent from September 2014. Inventories at the end of the month stood at 1,462,000 tons, down 5.7 percent from last month and down 3.3 percent from […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their slide according to the various flat rolled steel market indexes followed by Steel Market Update. The greatest movement was found with benchmark hot rolled which was down double digits on all of the indexes reporting last week. We saw mixed results when reviewing cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and plate […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 9, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 795 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 14 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 9 to 605 rigs, gas rigs down 6 to 189 rigs, and […]
Licensed data for September was updated on October 6th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to our […]
The first rule of business travel is don’t book the last flight of the day to your end destination – especially when you have a three hour ride to the airport and, guess what, the last 20 miles are in Chicago rush hour traffic… My thanks to Mario Briccetti (Steel 101 instructor) who imitated another […]
US Steel announced on Tuesday that it is examining a possible consolidation of its North American flat rolled operations and may idle steelmaking operations and most finishing operations at Granite City. US Steel said it routinely adjusts production to align with market fluctuations. The potential consolidation is a result of challenging global market conditions, including […]
According to the various flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and plate prices continue to be weak this past week. Benchmark hot rolled was the most stable with all four indexes reporting last week. SMU and Platts were showing the HRC average as being $430 per […]
Essar Steel Algoma will begin laying off employees on Sunday evening (Oct. 4) starting with the evening shift. USW Local 2551 received notice that approximately 100 workers will be cut, with the plate and cold mills most heavily affected. “We’ve had to match staffing levels to production and we have experienced a sustained drop in […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 2, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 809 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 29 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 26 to 614 rigs, gas rigs down 2 to 195 rigs, and […]
Steel imports to Mexico will see a 15 percent increase in tariffs for the next six months. The government said it will impose the temporary increase on imports from countries that do not have a free-trade agreement with Mexico in an attempt to stem the surge of low-priced imports flooding the country. Canacero, the Mexican […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
U.S. Congressman Pete Visclosky (D) addressed the International Trade Commission (ITC) hearing on cut-to-length carbon steel plate today, calling for the ITC to maintain the existing antidumping orders on cut-to-length steel plate from China, and the suspension agreements from Russia and Ukraine. “As a representative and resident of Northwest Indiana, one of our nation’s foremost […]
Last week three of the four steel indices followed by Steel Market Update reported flat rolled steel price averages for the week. We saw large double digit declines in the CRU on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized while Platts only saw movement in hot rolled. Steel Market Update captured declines in hot rolled, cold […]
According to Baker Hughes data from September 25, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 838 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 4 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 4 to 640 rigs, gas rigs down 1 to 197 rigs, and […]
Last week we reported on a change in the cold rolled antidumping/countervailing duty scope language that has created some concern within the manufacturing community. The concern is related to changes which resulted in this being added to the scope language: “Subject merchandise includes cold-rolled steel that has been further processed in a third country, including […]
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 126,600 tons in August to 3.160 million tons. Shipping days at 21, were down one from July. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments increased from 149,400 tons […]
Flat rolled and plate prices continued to slip as all of the indexes followed by Steel Market Update reported pricing this week. The CPI benchmark hot rolled average dropped $2 to end the week at $446 per ton ($22.30/cwt). We now have SMU with the lowest average at $440 per ton followed by Platts ($445), […]
According to Baker Hughes data from September 18, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 842 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 6 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 8 to 644 rigs, gas rigs up 2 to 198 rigs, and […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released August distributor shipment and inventory data on Wednesday of this week. Total steel inventories remained essentially unchanged in August compared to July as the daily shipping rate declined by 3.8 percent. The biggest declines in shipments were attributed to carbon plate (-14.8 percent), structurals (-3.9 percent) and carbon […]