This will be another interesting week for the steel industry. We have US Steel and AK Steel announcing their earnings and conducting conference calls with analysts. Will any of the mills make a move to push prices prior to one of these conference calls (mills have done it in the past)? There continues to be […]
March vehicle sales brought welcome new by bouncing back vigorously to 17.15 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, up from 16.23 million units in February. The March 2015 sales pace was 4 percent higher than the March 2014 pace. Cars had the greatest growth from 7.2 million units in February to 7.7 in […]
The Ontario Superior Court reserved judgment Monday on releasing the terms of an agreement made between US Steel Corp. and the Canadian federal government in 2011. Last week the Canadian government refused to release the documents that outline what was agreed by US Steel in return for the government dropping its suit against the company […]
US Steel announced another round of production adjustment cuts that affect the company’s tubular operations. Notice of potential layoffs were issued to 1,404 employees on Friday, April 17. The latest round of notifications impact 404 management employees in Houston and other U.S. Steel tubular operations, 579 employees at Lone Star Tubular, 166 at Offshore Operations […]
The Canadian government says it will not release the agreement made with US Steel after it dropped a lawsuit against the company in 2011. “It would be against the law for us to release this information without the agreement of the company,” said Industry Canada spokesperson Jake Enwright as quoted in the Hamilton Spectator. “On […]
The monthly value of the Federal Reserve Broad Index of the US dollar against our major trading partners is reported about one month in arrears. Through early March this index continued to strengthen and reached 94.686, after breaking 90 in December for the first time since July 2009. The monthly BI is a “Real” inflation […]
A worker at US Steel Great Lakes Works in Ecorse, Mich., was killed on Saturday evening when run over by a semi-truck. According to reports, Heather Warren was directing truck traffic when hit by a truck operated by ALCO Transportation at Great Lakes Works Cold Mill Shipping. The incident is under investigation. The Ecorse plant […]
SMU Service Center Apparent Excess The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released U.S. steel distributor shipments and inventories earlier today. We have a separate article which goes into detail in both flat and long products in this newsletter. This article focuses on our flat rolled steel Service Center Inventory Apparent Excess/Deficit forecast for the month […]
The following is a global forecast provided by the IMF this week. We provided an abridged statement from the IMF which is then followed by our Steel Market Update data analysis and comments about the future of global and domestic steel demand through 2020. This is a piece normally reserved for our Premium members but […]
The United Steelworkers are challenging US Steel’s claim that it is owed more than $2 billion from its own subsidiary, US Steel Canada. Union workers are concerned that US Steel will give itself creditor preference over the pensions of USW workers at Lake Erie Works and Hamilton Works. “Basically U.S. Steel says it owes itself […]
US Steel Corp. President and CEO Mario Longhi is the recipient of the 2015 AIST Steelmaker of the Year Award. The annual award is presented by the Association for Iron and Steel Technology to notable leaders for their impact on the steel industry. The prestigious honor will be conferred at the AISTech 2015—Iron and Steel […]
For those of you who are interested the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) shipment and inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow (Wednesday). We will have a full report for our Executive members in Thursday’s issue and our Apparent Excess and Price Forecast and another more detailed report for our Premium level members later […]
The pace of the flat rolled steel price slide slowed this past week, based on an analysis of the various steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. As the pace slows, the spread between indexes also tends to get tighter due to fewer variations in the data collected. Looking at benchmark hot rolled, Steel Market […]
US Steel Canada (USSC) has received approval by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to commence sale of its steel mills in Hamilton and Nanticoke. The April 2, 2015 order for the sale and restructuring/recapitalization process (SARP), as agreed to under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), was described in a press release by USSC […]
During my conference call with Cowen & Company and their customers last week I mentioned that I thought we could see a domestic mill price increase by the middle of May. My reasoning is inventories should begin to drop at the service center level and many of the end users want to tie up steel […]
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 February 2015 is 8,968,831 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. February supply […]
US Steel has revised their galvanized coating extras to those being used prior to October 1, 2014 when the last change was made. The new extras are lower than those used this past year. Here are the new extras being charged: The change in extras came as a surprise to some within the industry as […]
Our scrap sources are advising Steel Market Update that the scrap markets in the Midwest have been slow to settle with only a few deals done as of Tuesday morning. The expectation by those involved in the Midwest ferrous scrap markets is that the transactions will be completed over the next day or two. Most […]
On Easter Sunday, US Steel began the layoff of 165 employees at its Irvin plant at Mon Valley Works in West Mifflin, Pa. The layoffs are expected to be short term and according to Local Union 2227 President Kevin McKelvey, some of the workers could be back on the job as early as next week. […]
There have been so many announcements made by the integrated steel mills (US Steel and ArcelorMittal especially) since the beginning of 2015 we thought we would provide details on various blast furnace outages and other equipment and plants associated with steel making that have been affected by slowing order books in the energy sectors and […]
US Steel Canada will be in court on Thursday to settle the terms of sale for its steel mills, Hamilton Works and Lake Erie Works. Workers and the provincial government objected to a clause in the proposed plan which would freeze the sale process if any bidder’s offer included settlement of debts owed to it […]
Last week a number of steel mill CEO’s testified before the U.S. Congress about the flood of steel imports and the need to protect the domestic steel industry. Separate from the CEO’s testimony, former Nucur CEO called for quotas to be implemented against foreign steel which he considered to be unfairly traded. Steel Market Update […]
US Steel announced today it will adjust operations and temporarily idle a portion of its Minntac plant in Mount Iron, Minnesota, effective June 1st 2015. This is due to the company’s current iron ore inventory levels and ongoing adjustment of its steel making operations throughout North America. The company will continue to operate Minntac at reduced capacity […]
Earlier today, Steel Market Update adjusted our SMU Price Momentum Indicator from “Lower” to “Neutral.” Since November 16, 2014 the SMU Price Momentum Indicator has been pointing toward “Lower” steel prices. Prior to November 16th we had a period of time where our Momentum Indicator vacillated between Neutral and Lower going back to May 2014. […]
US Steel announced Wednesday it would consolidate its North American Flat-Rolled operations and temporarily idle operations at Granite City, Ill. Layoffs at Granite City will be effective on or after May 28, 2015. Granite City is the primary supplier for US Steel Lone Star Tubular which was issued layoff notices in January due to the […]
First, before everyone goes completely crazy regarding the US Steel announcement to “idle” the Granite City Works steel plant, SMU has been told by Courtney Boone, US Steel media spokesperson, that the plant would not go down prior to May 28, 2015. A lot can happen (and will happen) in the industry prior to that […]
A blustery March 25th marked the beginning of the Great Lakes shipping season and the opening of the Soo Locks. The first lake freighter to enter the Locks was the Edwin H. Gott from Great Lakes Fleet Inc. The Gott, named for the former US Steel chairman and CEO, entered the Locks at 11:05 a.m. […]
The following information is from the United States Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs concerning an accident at US Steel Fairfield in September 2014. Steel Market Update spoke to the U.S. Department of Labor who told us that the press release was not unusually harsh and the Labor Department was going with “narrative releases” […]
Three steel industry executives met in Washington D.C. on Thursday at the Congressional Steel Caucus to discuss state of the US steel industry and the impact unfairly traded imports have had on jobs and manufacturing. Revisions to the “material injury” standards were proposed to add language that clearly defines indicators of injury and allows relief […]
ArcelorMittal Cleveland is planning several maintenance outages over the next few months. A vessel reline at No. 1 basic oxygen furnace (BOF) begins on March 23 and will be completed by the middle of second quarter. The No. 1 steel producing facility will continue operations with one vessel throughout the outage period. The C-5 blast […]