The first measurement of our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index in the New Year provided us some mixed results. Current Sentiment, which is how steel buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, was measured at +54. This is well within the optimistic range of our Index but […]
Today we are producing two foreign steel import reports. This one is our normal report and we have a second one following which will look at imports from a different view point. The second report also addresses both long and flat rolled products and is normally available only to our Premium level members. The U.S. […]
This is our second article about foreign steel imports where we look deeper into imports from a three month moving average perspective. We also look at the complete picture by analyzing both long and flat rolled steel products. License data for December was updated on January 6th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the […]
Bidding has closed for Serbian steel mill Zelezara Smederevo with a decision due around February 1. Esmark Steel Group is considered the leading contender out of the 10 bids submitted to the Serbian government. The eventual buyer of the mill will be obligated to ramp up production of Zelezara’s second blast furnace to fifty percent capacity […]
The Chinese central government announced on Wednesday that it would remove the export rebate on certain boron-added steel products effective January 1, 2015. The move was anticipated by our sources in China however the impact of the move may be minimal and short-lived. Steel Market Update received the following information from one of our steel […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated the December 2014 steel import license data. As suspected the volume of requests dropped dramatically from the 4.0 million net ton pace we were seeing earlier in the month to 3.0+ million tons as of December 30th. December total steel imports (alloy and carbon) should be approximately 500,000 tons […]
All of the flat rolled price indices followed by Steel Market Update saw steel prices as continuing their decline but in larger increments than what we have been seeing over the past few weeks. Benchmark hot rolled coil pricing dropped by an average of $11 per ton. Two steel indexes, Steel Market Update and CRU, […]
Steel buyers were few and far between this week as everyone prepares for Christmas and Hanukkah holiday celebrations. Even so, those who were working this week and responding to our queries reported aggressive steel mills on all flat rolled products. We have seen erosion at the upper end of our range on all products and […]
All of the flat rolled steel indexes which reported pricing this past week saw benchmark hot rolled prices as being down and another step closer to touching $600 per ton. From Steel Market Update’s vantage point, the lower end of our range has broken down to $580 per ton ($29.00/cwt). Our HRC average for the […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) released their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index this afternoon. Sentiment, which is a measure as to how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, rose 4 points from the beginning of December and is now at +56. Positive (+) […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in November decreased by 763,700 tons to 2.979 million tons. This was mainly due to a decrease in shipping days from 23 to 19. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments also decreased from 162,700 in October to 156,800. In the eleven years 2004 through 2014 November shipments […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported total steel inventories of 9,195,700 tons. This represents an increase of 15.2 percent above last year and when taking the current shipment rate into consideration, MSCI reported inventories as being 33.1 percent higher than November 2013. The daily shipment rate dropped from 170,100 tons per day (all products) […]
All of the flat rolled steel price indices followed by Steel Market Update moved lower this past week. Based on performance and their ability to keep up with the markets, the three key indices are SMU, CRU and Platts which reported benchmark hot rolled price averages as $615, $614 and $615 per ton, respectively. SteelBenchmarker […]
A quick note to advise our readers of our Holiday publishing and office schedule. We will continue to publish as normal through Tuesday, December 23rd. We will not publish our newsletter on Thursday, December 25th and Sunday, December 28th unless there is important breaking news that we feel must be shared with our readers. We […]
Total October steel imports were recently finalized by the US Department of Commerce at 4,441,271 net tons (4,029,058 metric tons), surpassing the previous high of 4,417,811 tons in August 1998. October had been on pace to be a high tonnage month, but previous preliminary data figures were a few thousand tons shy of breaking the […]
October steel exports totaled 1,010,089 net tons (916,338 metric tons), down 2.3 percent over September and down 10.9 percent from October 2013 (all products). Cut plate exports declined 16.1 percent from September to October to 108,527 tons, but were up 0.6 percent compared to levels one year prior. Exports of coiled plate were 39,950 tons in […]
Hot rolled prices dropped on all the indexes which reported new pricing this past week. Steel Market Update was down $10 per ton to $620 per ton with CRU ($623) and Platts ($625) coming very close to the SMU number. SteelBenchmarker did not report new pricing this past week as they only report HRC prices […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. announced on Tuesday the purchased of Fox Metals and Alloys, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. Fox Metals, based in Houston, Texas, is a steel distributor specializing in alloy, carbon and stainless steel bar and plate products, primarily servicing OEMs and machine shops supporting the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. “The […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other flat rolled steel indexes reported benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down $5-$9 per ton this past week. Our average also declined by $5 per ton and now sits at $637 per ton. With at least one mill offering spot hot rolled at, or below, $600 […]
With crude oil prices breaking through $80 per barrel, all eyes are on the Baker Hughes rig count data. The question is will the lower oil prices affect the number of wells being drilled? Most assume there will be an impact, however, it could have a lag effect and take time before there is a […]
Flat rolled steel prices, as reported by Steel Market Update, Platts, CRU this past week (SteelBenchmarker did not report last week) had mixed results. CRU and SMU have hot rolled prices at $634 and $635 respectively. Platts remains stuck at $640 as they have been for a number of weeks now. SteelBenchmarker did not report […]
With crude oil prices breaking through $80 per barrel, all eyes are on the Baker Hughes rig count data. The question is will the lower oil prices affect the number of wells being drilled? Most assume there will be an impact, however, it could have a lag effect and take time before there is a […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in October increased by 244,000 tons to 3.742 million tons. This was due to an increase in shipping days from 21 to 23. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments decreased from 166,600 tons in September to 162,700 in October. In every month this year since March, t/d […]
Yesterday the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released their inventory and shipment data. According to the latest data total steel inventories dropped by 0.40 percent from the previous month and stood at 9,312,500 tons as of the end of October. Although down from the prior month steel inventories were 15.5 percent higher than October 2013. […]
Late last week Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our galvanized range to take into consideration the growing number of base prices reaching down to the $35.00/cwt level. Our galvanized range is now $35.00/cwt-$38.00/cwt for new spot orders. Over the weekend we adjusted our hot rolled range to reflect the lower numbers we have been collecting […]
With crude oil prices breaking through $80 per barrel, all eyes are on the Baker Hughes rig count data. The question is will the lower oil prices affect the number of wells being drilled? Most assume there will be an impact however, it could have a lag effect and take time before there is a […]
Evraz Claymont Steel is slated for demolition by Commercial Development Company, Inc. (CDC). The Delaware mill, which has been idled since December 2013, will be sold by Evraz to CDC for an undisclosed figure by the end of the year. CDC plans to “take the site through a brownfield-cleanup process, which will include the demolition […]
Licensed data for October was updated on November 4th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Department of Commerce. 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 published in […]
We thought our readers might be interested in reading what the AISI reported regarding foreign steel imports for the month of October. Washington, D.C. – Based on the Commerce Department’s most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported today that steel import permit applications for the […]
The World Steel Association published its 2014 statistical year book this week with data through 2013. Figure 1 shows total crude steel production in the U.S. since 1880 in short tons. The peak production was 150,483,000 tons in 1973. The final total for 2013 was 95,566,000 tons, down by 2.05 percent from 97,565,000 in 2012. […]