The following article was written by Peter Wright, consultant and instructor associated with Steel Market Update. Mr. Wright writes a more detailed article for our Premium level clients that spells out details of currency changes for all of the steel trading nations. He noticed that the Chinese government is intervening in the value of their […]
Essar Steel is in the running for purchase US Steel Canada according to an anonymous source close to the bidding process. According to the Hamilton Spectator, the source said Essar Steel Holdings is interested in purchasing both Hamilton Works and Lake Erie Works, the only bidder interested in the entire USSC operation. Other bidders are […]
USW members at Cliffs Natural Resources are watching labor negotiations at ArcelorMittal and US Steel very carefully. The USW contracts with Cliffs will expire on October 1, 2015 and cover 2,600 employees at four local unions in Minnesota and Michigan. In a statement to the membership, union officials cautioned workers that negotiations at the two […]
We have two data sources for this report. These are the Federal Reserve and the Oanda forex trading platform. An explanation of these sources is given at the end of this report. Oanda is current every day but the Federal Reserve daily broad index (BI) is normally about eight days in arrears. As of August […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
ATI has threatened a potential lockout over contract negotiations. Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) offered the USW Bargaining Committee its “last, best and final” proposal last Friday. According to the USW the proposal was accompanied by a request from ATI that “the Union accept this proposal and recommend it for ratification by 3:00 p.m. on Monday, […]
US Steel Canada pensioners have won a court decision that will likely place them at the head of the queue of creditors for the CCAA protected entity. Lawyers for retired Hamilton steelworkers intervened in a case of Grant Forest Products that entered CCAA protection to avoid bankruptcy. After its assets were sold and divided among […]
With the filing of the hot rolled trade case (which was expected by almost everyone in the industry and the date had been leaked long ago) we now have all flat rolled products followed by Steel Market Update involved. It will take time to sort through all of the data and for the process to […]
Over the past two months the U.S. steel industry has filed antidumping petitions on corrosion resistant (coated steels like galvanized and Galvalume) and cold rolled steels. The rumor mill has been flush with talk that a hot rolled suit will be announced as early as this week. What will the impact be on flat rolled […]
Over the weekend we received further updates on the status of the ferrous scrap markets in the United States. We learned that US Steel Granite City had no scrap buys in July and we are hearing that they are passing on offers that are $30 to $45 per gross ton lower than their last buys […]
ATI Flat Rolled Products presented its “Last, Best and Final” contract proposal to the USW negotiating committee on Friday. The more than 2,000 union represented employees at ATI have been working under terms of a contract that expired June 30, 2015. ATI management told employees that changes must be made to adapt to a changing […]
Contract negotiations are continuing between US Steel and the United Steel Workers. The USW negotiation team was less than thrilled with the proposal received from management last week. A USW update to members stated, “The USW negotiating team explained that the union would be flexible and willing to solve problems, but that the USW was […]
Olympic Steel net sales fell to $316.3 million in second quarter and dropped 9.8 percent to $661.1 million for the first half of 2015. Declines in both periods were attributed to lower shipments and lower average selling prices due in part to the impact of subsidized imports on the market. The company reported a net […]
On June 3rd Nucor, US Steel, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition against China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy on corrosion-resistant steels. To put this into layman’s terms the domestic mills filed a dumping (AD) and CVD suit on producers of galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) received this Letter to the Editor from a steel trading company executive providing an opinion on the recent slew of antidumping trade suits on flat rolled steels: First of all congratulations to Dave Phelps for his comments. As the longtime president of AIIS he has personally seen many years of domestic […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) produces two series of articles focused on the buying and selling of flat rolled steel. Many of the articles can be found on our website under: Steel Buyers Basics or The Truth About Selling Steel. The following article is part of our Steel Buyers Basics series and is written by Mario […]
On June 3, 2015, six U.S. steel mills filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against corrosion resistant (referred to as CORE, which are coated steels such as galvanized and Galvalume products) steels from: China, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Italy. Late last week, attorneys representing Nucor Corporation, US Steel, Steel Dynamics, AK Steel , […]
US Steel is expecting higher steel prices and shipments in the second half of 2015 helped by the recent trade case on cold rolled steel and an upcoming trade case on hot rolled steel. The company reported a net loss of $261 million for second quarter which included a write down of $136 million on […]
As expected, five U.S. steel mills banded together and filed an antidumping petition against cold rolled steel from: China, Russia, India, South Korea, Netherlands, Japan, United Kingdom and Brazil. Reaction from steel buyers about the scope of the cold rolled suit ranged from relatively muted to surprised. Those who had a muted response expected that […]
AK Steel blamed low prices due to high levels of unfairly traded imports for its net loss of $64 million for the second quarter of 2015. Net sales for the quarter totaled $1.69, down from $1.75 billion sequentially and $1.53 billion in Q2 2014. Average selling price of $931 per ton was down 7 percent […]
The United Steel Workers received an outline of a contract proposal from US Steel Corp. and found it riddled with concessions that the USW says would “erode decades of contractural improvements and benefits.” Health benefits seem to be a consistent theme in labor negotiations this year. US Steel is seeking to increase the minimum annual […]
Last night (Monday, July 27th) US Steel began advising some of their customers that a cold rolled trade suit had been filed against 8 foreign countries. We have learned from other mills mentioned in the text of the USS email below, that the case is actually being filed today. Here is the full text of […]
On Sunday we produced an article that was perhaps confusing to some of our readers. The article entitled: “Possible Strike Does Not Worry Buyers & Sellers of Steel” had an error in the graphic produced. Our survey results has 76 percent of those responding saying they are Not concerned about the possibility of a strike […]
US Steel wants “to turn back the clock” in contract demands said the United Steelworkers in a statement on the ongoing contract negotiations. “While we have yet to receive a formal, detailed proposal from the company, it’s clear from this initial outline that U.S. Steel is attempting to use the current industry downturn to gut […]
By a wide majority, buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel have little to no fear of a possible strike or lockout at either US Steel or ArcelorMittal. At least that is what we found during our most recent flat rolled market analysis conducted last week. Negotiations have started between ArcelorMittal and US Steel with […]
US Steel Canada has a new financial backer to help it through its credit protection period. A court hearing on Friday removed parent company US Steel as provider of debtor in possession (DIP) financing and installed Brookfield Capital Partners as the new lender. The new lending package gives USSC access to $150 million to keep […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
This morning, Steel Market Update participated in the monthly HARDI galvanized steel conference call. Each month HARDI hosts a conference call amongst the wholesalers who supply galvanized sheet and coil to the mechanical contractors who are producing the duct work and air handling systems for both residential and commercial construction. We discussed in the previous […]
Following the exceptional rate of vehicle sales in the US in May the June rate fell from 17.8 million annualized to 17.2 million which is a more sustainable rate. The June pace was still higher than the 16.9 million units average of the past 12 months. Demand is being supported by easier credit terms, sustained […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Higher to Neutral. Now why did we go and do that? We have been stuck in a very tight trading range on most flat rolled steels since late April of this year. Benchmark hot rolled, which is used by most in the […]