The following article is was provided to our Premium customers on Friday afternoon, and we felt it would be a good article to share with our Executive members as an example of what a Premium level membership has to offer. We also published Imports by Product, Port, and Country and our Market Survey Results to […]
Licensed data for March was updated on April 7th 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 […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market to enable a side by side comparison and the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both supply and mill shipments of sheet […]
Steel import levels continue to increase at ports around the U.S. SMU spoke with several ports and all but one expects imports to grow, not decrease, in the coming months. Out on the West Coast, the Port of Los Angeles is still working through congestion brought about by the recent labor dispute and chassis issues. […]
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 […]
This morning Steel Market Update (SMU) participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call hosted by HARDI. The conference call is for those HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors around the United States and Canada. Since the last conference call held during the later days in February, galvanized […]
ArcelorMittal Cleveland is planning several maintenance outages over the next few months. A vessel reline at No. 1 basic oxygen furnace (BOF) begins on March 23 and will be completed by the middle of second quarter. The No. 1 steel producing facility will continue operations with one vessel throughout the outage period. The C-5 blast […]
As we ended the last article about the possibility of Anti-Dumping (AD) or Countervailing Duty (CVD) trade cases against flat rolled steel (cold rolled, galvanized and possibly Galvalume) in Tuesday evening’s issue we presented a number of questions posed by one of our readers. He wanted to know: I have a timeline question for you […]
Nucor Corporation expects first quarter results to “decrease significantly” compared to fourth quarter and exceed first quarter 2014 levels only slightly. High levels of imports have lowered selling prices and squeezed margins. Nucor notes that total steel imports rose 38 percent in 2014 and account for 34 percent of the total domestic shipments last year. […]
Nucor Corporation expects first quarter results to “decrease significantly” compared to fourth quarter and exceed first quarter 2014 levels only slightly. High levels of imports have lowered selling prices and squeezed margins. Nucor notes that total steel imports rose 38 percent in 2014 and account for 34 percent of the total domestic shipments last year. […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in February decreased by 182,800 tons to 3.185 million tons. Shipping days at 20 were one less than February. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments decreased from 160,400 in January to 159,300 in February. In the eleven years since 2004 February shipments on average have been 0.1 […]
Steel Dynamics expects that a decline in steel shipments caused by inventory overhang, hesitant demand and margin compression will lower first quarter profitability. In the company’s first quarter guidance, SDI noted: “During the first quarter of 2015, two important industry developments occurred: – “Domestic steel product pricing declined to levels that are now globally competitive, […]
Chinese steel exports to the U.S. in January 2015 were 40 percent higher than in January 2014, according to World Steel Association data. As Chinese domestic demand weakens, exports have flooded not only the U.S. but nations across the globe. The resulting depressed prices and undercutting of domestic steel production has led to increased government […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in January were almost double that which existed before the recession. The […]
The following article is usually available to our Premium level members only. This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market in one single report to enable a side by side comparison and the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department […]
M&M Manufacturing, a portfolio company of TGF Management, has been acquired by MiTek Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. The transaction, announced by Houlihan Lokey, closed on February 24, 2015. M&M Manufacturing, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, is the leading diversified manufacturer of sheet metal building products in the Southwest, primarily servicing the air […]
Licensed data for February was updated on March 3rd through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. Steel Market Update 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 […]
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 […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics, (BLS) puts out its series of producer price indexes, for thousands of goods and materials. For an explanation of this program see the end of this piece. The latest release last Wednesday reported January results. We run this analysis every three months to give readers an opportunity to […]
Once a month, HARDI sponsors a galvanized steel conference call with the wholesalers who sell sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors. Steel Market Update (SMU) has participated in these informative discussions for a number of years and they are very useful in our understanding of the ebb and flow of both pricing and […]
Total service center carbon steel shipments in January increased by 372,400 tons to 3.368 million tons. There was a decrease of one shipping day to 21 in January. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments increased from 126,200 in December to 160,400 in January. In the eleven years since 2004 January shipments on average […]
Steel Market Update saw an interesting report on the impact of lower scrap prices to the steel industry. The report was produced by metals and mining analysts, Timna Tanners of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research for her clients. A question Steel Market Update receives on a regular basis is what is the marginal cost […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced a return to profitability with a net income of CDN$26.8 million for the third quarter ending December 31, 2014, after reporting a net loss of CDN 38.6 million for the same period of 2013. Steel shipments for the quarter increased 4.7 percent year over year to 618,538 tons. Average realized sales […]
Import data is reported three times for each month. These reports are licensed, preliminary and final tonnages for each product. The Steel Import Monitoring system has been a widely used tool to provide an advanced look at import volumes using data compiled from import licenses. These licenses can be applied for at any time between […]
Last month we began to report on domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market in one single report to be able to compare side by side demand and the degree to which imports have absorbed that demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by […]
Licensed data for January was updated on February 3rd 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 published in our […]
Steel Market Update thought it might be worthwhile to pick out some of the comments made by Steel Dynamics CEO Mark Millett during his earnings conference call with analysts late last week. We have focused on comments made about foreign steel, scrap, energy markets and the new Columbus facility. Each of the comments made are […]
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 […]
US Steel earnings reported 2014 net income of $102 million, attributing its Carnegie Way for its first profitable year since 2008. In 2013, US Steel reported a full-year net loss $1.645 billion that included $1.5 billion in impairment and restructuring costs. Net income for fourth quarter was $275 million, compared to $297 million in Q4 […]
The Chinese steel industry exported 70,823,201 metric tons (780,691,000 net tons) of steel products during calendar year 2014 according to the Chinese Customs Service. The largest exporting segment was sheet and plate where the Chinese steel mills shipped 32,791,085 metric tons (36,146,000 net tons) to countries outside of China. According to Chuck Bradford, of Bradford […]