Tag: steel

SMU’s Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices both rose this week to reach some of the highest levels seen this year.

GrafTech is reporting weak near-term demand for graphite electrodes as economic uncertainty constrains steel production globally.

Steelmaking currently accounts for approximately 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The only way to achieve net zero goals is to significantly reduce steel emissions worldwide. And there is no way to do that without recycling.

If successful in its overtures to Anglo American, BHP will create the world’s largest diversified miner by a country mile. The rationale for this merger is scale and in mining, size matters. 

Cleveland-Cliffs said its base spot hot-rolled (HR) coil price will be $850 per short ton (st) with the opening of its June order book. The company made the announcement in a press release and in a letter to customers on Friday.

Hot-rolled coil and plate lead times contracted this week, with most other products remaining flat, according to SMU's most recent survey data. Cold-rolled products, however, saw lead times extend 0.1 weeks to an average of 7.5 weeks vs. two weeks earlier. Hot rolled and plate lead times both contracted 0.3 weeks from our last market check.

Week-over-week trading activity in US steel derivatives markets was relatively muted, with prices maintaining their downward direction since the beginning of the month. Bids have materialized at the lower end of this range in the May, as the nearby backwardation continues to roll on - just as we saw with April being a premium over May.

I’ve gotten some questions lately about whether the huge gap between domestic hot-rolled coil (HR) prices and those for cold-rolled (CR) and coated is sustainable. I remember being asked similar questions about the wide spread between HR and plate that developed in early 2022. I thought at the time that there was no way that spread could hold. Turned out, I was wrong. That was humbling. And so I’m not going to make any bold predictions this time.

Reliance Inc.’s earnings slumped in the first quarter of 2024, but the company expects better than normal seasonal recovery in demand in the second quarter.

Sheet steel buyers said mills are more willing to talk price on spot orders, according to our most recent survey data.

Destocking at service centers and a downturn in steel pricing impacted Ternium’s shipments in Mexico in the first quarter of the year.

Steel imports held steady in March, up just 1% from February according to preliminary Census data released earlier this week.

US hot-rolled (HR) coil remains more expensive than offshore hot band, though with a tighter premium as prices stateside and abroad have ticked lower in recent weeks.

Algoma Steel Inc. expects to wrap up a previously announced outage on its plate mill by the end of this month, a company spokeswoman said. The outage is part of the Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker’s $130 million CAD ($95 million USD) modernization project. It began in mid-April.

Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) executives said the company's Sinton, Texas, sheet mill should be able to increase melt capacity after an outage earlier this month. Sinton should see "additional improvements in production" after taking "several maintenance days in April," Barry Schneider, SDI president and COO, said in a Q1 earnings conference call on Wednesday.

Lower demand and prices for steel plate impacted SSAB Americas’ results in the first quarter, Swedish parent company SSAB said in its Q1'24 interim report.

Cleveland-Cliffs is working on a solution for its recently idled mill in Weirton, W.Va., that will address pent-up demand for transformers, increase the need for its electrical steel, and get its workforce back to work.

Hybar CEO David Stickler will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, May 1, at 11 a.m. ET. The live webinar is free. A recording will be available to SMU members. You can register here.

We've used the word "unprecedented" a lot over the last four years to describe steel price volatility. Over the last two months – despite earlier predictions of a price surge - we've seen unprecedented stability.

With strength in the sector and customers needing the product it produces, Cleveland-Cliffs’ chief executive says the company will be more selective with the automotive customers it chooses to serve.

Steel Dynamics Inc.'s (SDI's) earnings fell in the first quarter of 2024 as the company cited steel order volatility early in the quarter and lower scrap prices.

Galvanized buyers reported steady demand and ample supply this week as pricing momentum has shifted, potentially pointing down. Service centers, distributors, and manufacturers who are members of the Heating, Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) association met virtually on Tuesday, April 23, for the monthly meeting of HARDI’s Sheet Metal/Air Handling Council. Sentiment was noticeably […]

Global steel output jumped 8.3% in March, according to World Steel Association’s (worldsteel's) latest release. Production is now at the highest level seen in 10 months, rebounding from a near six-year low observed just three months prior.

Cleveland-Cliffs’ chief Lourenco Goncalves and US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stressed the importance of the US steel industry and domestic manufacturing at Cliffs' Butler Works in Pennsylvania on Monday.

Lapham-Hickey Steel has acquired the operating assets of Crystal Steel Corporation of Middleton, Mass., for an undisclosed sum.

Nucor’s earnings slipped in the first quarter of this year, but the company said it launched key growth initiatives during this time period.

Domestic raw steel production slipped last week and now stands at a four-week low, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. continued to lose money in the first quarter, with the steelmaker blaming the loss in part on the idling of its tinplate facility in Weirton, W.Va.

ArcelorMittal plans to build a new electrical steel manufacturing facility near its AM/NS Calvert joint-venture mill in Alabama.

AZZ Inc. said it is seeing improving demand for its coil coating services as it reported a solid quarterly performance.