This report summarizes total steel supply from 2003 through February 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. has acquired custom sheet metal fabricator Best Manufacturing as of April 1, 2016. The company will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance with current management remaining in place. Headquartered in Jones Arkansas, Best Manufacturing provides various precision fabrication services including laser cutting, shearing, CNC punching, CNC forming and rolling, as […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. has acquired custom sheet metal fabricator Best Manufacturing as of April 1, 2016. The company will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance with current management remaining in place. Headquartered in Jones Arkansas, Best Manufacturing provides various precision fabrication services including laser cutting, shearing, CNC punching, CNC forming and rolling, as […]
According to ArcelorMittal USA comments made during the Association of Steel Distributors meeting over the weekend which SMU attended, a trade case on steel plate imports will be filed within the next few weeks. ArcelorMittal along with Nucor and SSAB have been working on the documentation for an extended period of time and our understanding […]
We know our readers enjoy hearing comments from those with whom we speak on a regular basis regarding market trends and pricing. We have had an active week heading into the first full week of April so here are some of the things our readers and sources are talking about during the last week of […]
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 34. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Nucor plans to invest $4.4 million in its Decatur steel manufacturing plant to upgrade the hot metal pickle line. On Monday, the Decatur Industrial Development Board approved an abatement of about $117,545 in non-educational state, city and county taxes over a 10-year period for the project. “We appreciate Nucor’s continued investment in their Decatur operations […]
Steel Market Update ferrous scrap sources are advising us that scrap prices are poised to move $30 to $50 per gross ton higher for April deliveries than what we saw negotiated at the beginning of March. The issue is supply. The domestic sheet mills are having issues finding all of the tonnage they need and […]
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 week reported results through February. We run this analysis every three or four months to give readers […]
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 125,500 tons in February to 3.034 million tons. Shipping days at 21, were up by one from January. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments decreased from 145,400 […]
Earlier this week Nucor Plate Group and SSAB announced price increases on plate products (with SSAB also including hot rolled coil) of $40 per ton. Over the past few months we have seen the plate mills lead the charge with sheet mills following close behind. This week was no different. Three mills announced flat rolled […]
U.S. steel service centers shipped a total of 3,179,800 tons of steel products during the month of February 2016. Even with an extra day due to Leap Year total tonnage was down 4.6 percent over year ago levels. The 151,400 tons per day steel shipment rate was down from January’s 152,700 rate and well below […]
SSAB followed the lead provided by the Nucor Plate Group and increased spot prices on plate as well as hot rolled coils coming out of their mills. Their increase mirrored the Nucor move of $40 per ton. This is the first increase on hot rolled since SSAB announced a $30 per ton increase on February […]
The following HRC and BUS futures market trading article was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Here is how Jack and Andre Marshall saw trading this week and what the forward curve looks like: HR futures continue to grind higher. While HR demand seems to be holding steady we are starting to see […]
This afternoon, Nucor’s plate mill group advised their customers through the use of an emailed letter of their intention to raise spot plate prices $40 per ton. The increase was to be effective with new spot orders acknowledged for the week of April 9th production and beyond. They also advised that they would collect the […]
The ruling regarding the preliminary determination of dumping of hot rolled steel out of Australia, Brazil, Turkey, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom was announced this evening. You will hear split opinions as to whether the ruling is a “win” or “loss” for the domestic steel mills. It is my opinion that this […]
Licensed data for February was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on March 8th. At SMU we perform a detailed analysis of this data, an explanation of our methodology is given at the end of this write up. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of February […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2007 through January 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
Ryerson CEO Eddie Lehner called 2015 “one of the harshest and most difficult metal environments we have seen in terms of magnitude and duration.” Ryerson Holding, a service center company, announced fourth quarter and full year results on Thursday. The company posted a net loss of $20.5 million for the quarter. Revenue was down 23 […]
Steel prices have surged in the Chinese domestic market over the past few days. Steel Market Update reported in our Final Thoughts on Sunday evening that something was up and buyers needed to be aware of what is going on around them – both here in North America as well as around the world. Volatility […]
As negotiations between the domestic steel mills and their ferrous scrap suppliers conclude we are seeing scrap prices rise with the Chicago markets “catching up” with some of the other regions. Dealers are reporting robust sales, especially to sheet mills as they are picking up spot market share from the integrated mills. Chicago area prices […]
This evening the U.S. Department of Commerce released their Preliminary Determinations on cold rolled from Brazil, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom. Each country was found to be exporting cold rolled into the United States at less than fair value. However, the degree of the penalties ranged from a low of 2.17 […]
Spot flat rolled steel prices were adjusted higher by Steel Market Update based on the data being collected out of our ongoing flat rolled steel survey as well as through direct contact with steel buyers. We found a tight cluster of hot rolled offers in the $400 to $410 range. Our average increased due to […]
SSAB, which is known primarily as a plate supplier, announced a $30 per ton price increase on plate and hot rolled coil in the United States and a $40 per ton price increase on hot rolled. The SSAB increases were sent via an emailed letter to their customers. The letter began, “Please be advised that […]
Steel prices continued their three month hike higher as SMU benchmark hot rolled price index (average) for the month was $408 per ton. Even with some minor stumbles noted in hot rolled and cold rolled during the second half of the month, our Price Momentum Indicator is still pointing toward higher prices over the next […]
The following article is one of the key proprietary products produced for our Premium level members. We wanted to share it with all of our readers this evening to give everyone a feel for how we are seeing the steel economy based on “the numbers.” An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at […]
Happy Academy Award (Oscar) Night… We will begin our early March flat rolled steel market trend analysis on Monday morning. If you receive an invitation to participate please take a few moments to click on the button contained in the message which will take you to our questionnaire. If you would like to participate in […]
Once a month HARDI wholesalers conduct a conference call for those member companies who are involved in the sale of galvanized sheet and coils to the mechanical contractors involved in residential and commercial construction. Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, has been involved with the HARDI organization for many years going back to his steel […]
BlueScope Steel is one of only a handful of major steel companies around the world that is reporting profit. Underlying EBIT for the first half of FY 2016 was $166.5 million, up 35 percent year over year.. Commenting on the outlook for the company, CEO Paul O’Malley said, “Notwithstanding a challenging macroeconomic environment, we are […]
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 264,500 tons in January to 2.909 million tons. Shipping days at 20, were down by two from December. On a tons per day basis (t/d) shipments increased from 120,200 […]