We have been hearing a lot about TPP and TPA. Here’s another acronym you should know—T-TIP. T-TIP stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The T-TIP is a trade and investment agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and the European Union. Launched by President Obama in 2013, T-TIP has taken a backseat to the Trans-Pacific […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of April 2015 was 9,212,032 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. April supply […]
The “not if but when” question has been settled as the long awaited trade case filing on galvanized steel finally occurred on Wednesday. Six domestic steel mills submitted a petition to the Department of Commerce asking for the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from China, the Republic of Korea, […]
A US Steel spokesperson reports that the Fairfield Works blast furnace is in the process of restarting. Notices were given last week to employees and customers that a blast furnace at Granite City Works will continue in operation. Analysts at Key Banc Capital Markets had the following comments on US Steel. “Fairfield is being restarted […]
The United Steel Workers said Wednesday that the union fully supports the antidumping and countervailing petition filed on corrosion-resistant steel products. The petition, said the USW in a press release, details ”how a flood of subsidized and unfairly traded steel imports from China, India, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan has damaged the US steel industry […]
I was pleased to hear from a number of our readers who had used the search function at the top right hand side of our website in order to find old articles that we had written on the subject of dumping suits and the process that the suit has to go through. I used the […]
The world’s steel producers managed to pump out 1.665 billion metric tons of steel (1.84 billion net tons) during 2014 according to the World Steel Association (WSA) which released their 2014 data book earlier today. According to the WSA, the United States was the third largest steel producing country behind China and Japan. This is […]
US Steel has purchased the remaining AK Steel shares of its joint interest in Double Eagle Steel Coating Company. AK Steel acquired 50 percent of Double Eagle when it acquired the Severstal Dearborn operations in 2014. With a payment of $25.2 million to AK Steel, US Steel now owns the 700,000 ton electrolytic-galvanizing line. The […]
Steel Market Update found it interesting as we received a number of comments regarding Al Plummer’s letter to the editor regarding foreign steel imports, pricing and potential dumping. What was most interesting was the vast majority of the comments received were from other steel traders… One trader responded to the continued threats of filing dumping […]
Steel Market Update sources: mill, service center and others are advising us that anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) trade cases on coated products will be filed yet this week. We have heard that the filing could come as early as tomorrow (Wednesday, June 3rd) or on Thursday of this week. Any trade filing on coated […]
The dollar is making another strong move upward. The Fed reports a daily nominal (non-inflation adjusted) index, the latest data for which is May 22nd with a value of 114.62 up 1.6 percent in 7 days. On March 13th the daily index peaked at 117.92, the highest value since May 13th 2004. Figure 1 shows […]
Today SMU is not only going to discuss where flat rolled steel prices were this past week based on our analysis of steel pricing from our steel index as well as CRU, Platts and SteelBenchmarker, we are also going to discuss price momentum which our SMU Price Momentum Indicator currently points to higher prices over […]
Based on channel checks with our scrap sources, we are hearing that many of the steel mills have been actively buying as much scrap as possible during the month of May. The extra tonnage being added to the early May tons are being purchased at higher prices. Prices are up as much as $10 to […]
Steel Market Update participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call sponsored by HARDI for their wholesalers who supply sheet and coils to the HVAC mechanical contractors. The focus of the conference call is to discuss how the wholesalers see demand and market forces which impact galvanized steel supply and prices. This was the first […]
The International Monetary Fund says the China’s currency is “no longer undervalued” after being labeled “modestly undervalued” for the past several years. According to a Tuesday statement by IMF, “While undervaluation of the renminbi was a major factor causing the large imbalances in the past, our assessment now is that the substantial real effective appreciation […]
US Steel has decided not to close down the Granite City mill this month. Instead, 80 workers will be laid off and one blast furnace will be kept in operation. The second furnace will be offline while a new caster is installed. The previously announced temporary closure would have affected 2,080 employees at the plant. […]
For the week ending May 23, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,732,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.6 percent increase over the previous week but an 6.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.3 percent, up […]
There are going to be two main themes which SMU and other steel periodicals will be writing about over the coming months (between now and our Steel Summit Conference at the beginning of September). The two themes are: anti-dumping suits on light flat rolled products and union contract negotiations between U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal USA […]
US Steel can keep its secrets. Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel ruled on Wednesday that the details of the agreement between US Steel and the government of Canada cannot be released by the court—only by the Ministry of Industry. And, so far, neither the Ministry nor US Steel is willing to reveal the contents of […]
Severstal says the DOC should not terminate the suspension agreement on cut-to-length steel plate from Russia. In a communication to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the Russian steel producer said there is no evidence that Russian steel imports of CTL are injurious to the U.S. domestic steel market. In its letter Severstal writes, “Petitioner’s request […]
The value of the U.S. dollar has been one of the main themes affecting commodities around the world, including steel prices. The Russian ruble collapses making their steel the cheapest in the world. They, in turn, put pressure on the Chinese (who already are having issues due to their massive over-capacity of steelmaking) who are […]
Another 285 workers were laid off at US Steel’s Gary Works. US Steel spokesperson Courtney Boone attributes “challenging market conditions that are impacting the company” for the latest layoffs. US Steel laid off 270 workers three weeks ago but recalled 52 of them last week. On Friday, 57 salaried managers were dismissed, bringing the total […]
Short comments this evening as I am attending the Metals Industry Dinner (Boy Scout Dinner) in Chicago. The sentiment within the room was mostly optimistic, although there were a number of conversations about April not being a great month or not meeting expectations. This would help explain some of the weakness seen in the MSCI […]
This week Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to Higher from Neutral. Based on our checks of the steel buying community, prices are beginning to firm and the $20 per ton price increase announced by a number of the steel mills appears to be sticking. SMU is of the opinion as long as […]
The monthly value of the Federal Reserve Broad Index of the US $ against our major trading partners is reported about one month in arrears. In one month through about April 12th this index weakened by 1.9 percent which was a sharp reversal from the previous seven month trend. The monthly BI is a “Real” […]
The 2015 Association for Iron and Steel Technology Steelmaker of the Year Award was presented to Mario Longhi, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Steel Corp. at the AISTech 2015 conference in Cleveland, Ohio on May 5, 2015. The award recognizes the contributions of a prominent individual to the steel industry. Longhi was honored […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of March 2015 is 9,575,903 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. March supply […]
On May 1, Nucor Corp. and SSAB Americas filed a joint request asking the Department of Commerce to find that Chinese producers of cut-to-length (CTL) steel plate are circumventing the antidumping order on CTL plate from China. According to documents submitted to the DOC, Chinese plate producers are adding small amounts of alloys, such as […]
During the latest slew of earnings conference calls by the domestic steel mills, analysts were relentless in their pursuit of information regarding trade cases which would conceivably impact the flow of imported steel into the United States. The steel mill CEO’s and other mill executives associated with the conference calls were more than willing to […]
There are always two sides to any story. The domestic steel mill view is the influx of foreign steel is due to illegal dumping by the companies or countries exporting steel to the United States. The manufacturing companies who are benefiting from the lower priced imports (and their impact on domestic steel prices) have a […]