There has been some confusion in the marketplace as many mills were waiting for Nucor and SDI to come out with new price announcements after SSAB and ArcelorMittal led the way earlier this week. On Tuesday, NLMK USA representatives began verbally informing their customers that their spot prices on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Department of Commerce is initiating a circumvention inquiry on imports of cut-to-length steel plate from China following a petition from Nucor and SSAB. The two steel mills assert that producers, exporters and importers are circumventing duties imposed on CTL by adding alloys, such as boron, titanium and chromium to the product. The Department of […]
SSAB faced a tough market in fourth quarter resulting in an operating loss of SEK 802 million ($94.4 million). Low volumes and steel prices in North America and Europe and a maintenance outage at SSAB Special Steels were contributing factors. For the full year 2015, SSAB posted an operating loss of SEK 128 million ($15.2 […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce issued their Preliminary Determination on countervailing duties (CVD) of hot rolled coil from Brazil, Turkey and South Korea. Affirmative results were found against Brazil with CSN and Usiminas both receiving subsidy rates of 7.42 percent. All other Brazilian mills not named also received 7.42 percent subsidy rates. Turkey and South […]
Plate price increase announcements actually preceded those of hot rolled, cold rolled and coated products. On Monday, both Nucor and Evraz North America sent out letters to their customers advising plate prices would be rising by $30 per ton. The Evraz letter said: “Please be advised that effective immediately with all new orders, Evraz NA […]
We are pleased to have Philip Hoffman, Chairman & CEO of Hoffman Iron & Steel provide us his unique insights on both the domestic and international scrap markets as well as his forecast for where international and domestic scrap prices will be headed in the next month or two (and why). As most are aware, […]
Steel Market Update received the following press release from the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration regarding the release of the preliminary determination for the hot rolled countervailing duty portion of the hot rolled trade case: On January 11, 2016, the Department of Commerce is scheduled to announce its preliminary determinations in the CVD […]
SSAB expects to report lower earnings for fourth quarter due to decreased volumes and falling prices in Europe and North America but is looking forward to better market conditions in Q1. Market conditions have deteriorated further than expected from the previous forecast for fourth quarter. Plate and strip market prices fell sharply during the quarter […]
SMU was advised over the weekend that Nucor had raised spot plate pricing by $30 per ton. On Monday, SSAB followed the Nucor lead by providing a letter to their customers advising them, “Please be advised that effective immediately SSAB Americas is raising the transaction price for all non-contract As-Rolled Mill Plate, Cut-To-Length Plate >72”, […]
Claimants in a steel anti-trust suit that has been ongoing since 2008 will finally receive some satisfaction. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Illinois approved the distribution of settlement funds for 1,857 claims totaling almost $103.7 million. The settlement stems from a 2008 price fixing case involving eight steel manufacturers. Standard Iron Works […]
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 […]
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 […]
I, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and a number of steel people are all in Davenport, Iowa enjoying the warmer than normal weather and great conditions to do a mill tour which is exactly what we did this afternoon (without Hillary and Jeb). I want to thank everyone at SSAB for their hospitality and for doing […]
One of the reasons SMU decided to go with an App for our Steel Summit Conference this year was the belief that the App was something that could be used prior to the conference as well as after the conference. For example, earlier today I was working on developing scrap information in relationship to iron […]
I spent part of my day today speaking to buyers who are known to buy foreign steel either due to logistics reasons (too far away from a producing mill) or who prefer to have options for pricing reasons. What I found out is a number of countries involved in the trade suits continue to quote […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 24, 2015 – The Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI), a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), has launched a new website that focuses on using steel for building construction. The new site, located at www.buildusingsteel.org, provides information for engineers, architects, owners, building contractors, code officials and other construction […]
We will be in Iowa next week for one of our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshops. We are looking forward to working with SSAB again, as we did a workshop in Mobile, Alabama and toured their Alabama facility. This is our first trip to Iowa. We are working on ironing […]
As we have mentioned in a recent article, there has been an intentional change in the scope language associated with the cold rolled and hot rolled antidumping and countervailing duty suits. The change in the language appears to add parts that are not part of Chapter 72 of the Harmonized Code (iron and steel). Of […]
I am currently involved in selling our family home now that my kids are gone and we no longer need a large house. The process of dealing with listing agents and real estate sales people has sparked a number of articles about customers service and understanding who the customer really is within our newsletter/website. The […]
My opinion (and many of the items discussed in my Final Thoughts articles are just that – my opinion) is that we are getting close to seeing a disruption of services at one mill and we probably are close to possibly seeing two mills (ArcelorMittal and US Steel) lockout the USW members at their mills. […]
Sentiment amongst most steel buyers is that the mills (USS & ArcelorMittal USA) will not lockout the union workers. It appears there is a bit of a stalemate right now as the mills feel they need to get something from the union and the union workers believe that what they have they earned and cannot […]
For those interested in more information on the HRC trade case, the following is a reprint of the International Trade Administration Fact Sheet on the AD/CVD investigation into imports of hot rolled steel flat products from seven countries. The US DOC did decide earlier this week to allow the HRC case to move forward. ITA […]
We had a great conference! Don’t take my word for it, go out and talk to the hundreds of people who attended this year and ask their opinion. We are well on the way to making this conference THE Steel Summit Conference of the year for those who are actively involved in the steel industry. […]
Recently Steel Market Update produced information related to the changes in the LME spot price for zinc and the costs associated with applying the Zinc to steel substrate in order to make galvanized product. It has been normal for the domestic steel mills to react to significant adjustments in the cost of zinc by adjusting […]
Our office is overwhelmed with the response we have had to our 5th Steel Summit Conference which is only our 2nd two day conference. As of this afternoon we had 272 people registered. The facility we have can comfortably seat 292 people… We will have a full house. Thank you. For those coming to the […]
We are now one week away from our 5th Steel Summit Conference. As I have mentioned before, we will set a new record for attendance this year, potentially breaking last year’s record by 80 to 100 people. Our Steel Summit Conference continues to get accolades from those in the industry for the quality of our […]