Steel Market Update featured Timna Tanners, Metals & Mining Analyst, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, and John Anton, Director of Steel Services, IHS Global, at a luncheon presentation at the recent Steel Summit. The topic was commodity and steel forecasts and consolidation of the industry. As usual the two disagreed on some topics and sparked some […]
Are foreign steel prices too low or are US steel prices too high? That is a question faced by trade litigation attorneys Robert Schagrin and Lewis Leibowitz at the recent SMU Steel Summit conference in Atlanta. There is a $300 delta between China and US prices and a $200 delta between Europe and the US […]
Buyers of galvanized steel know that one of the most critical pieces of building pricing is adding the cost charge by the steel mill to apply zinc to steel. If you have had a chance to explore the ‘Resources‘ section of the Steel Market Update website, you may have come across our Steel Mill section […]
There were no surprises raised during the most recent HARDI steel conference call conducted earlier this morning (Tuesday, August 26th). There were no surprises because on the previous call, held in July, the galvanized steel group members discussed the potential for new coating extras as zinc prices rose above $1.00 per pound. As anticipated back […]
A number of steel mills have joined Nucor and US Steel by adjusting their coating extras on galvanized steel. Wheeling Nisshin advised their customers on Monday of this week that they were going to the new U.S. Steel galvanized extras. Severstal also made adjustments to their mills extras but they did not come out with […]
The US International Trade Commission announced Friday that it will impose anti-dumping duties on imports from six of the nine countries accused by U.S. steel producers of dumping OCTG in the US market. The decision includes Korea, who was previously excluded in the preliminary decision, India, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. The Philippines and Thailand […]
TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline has been on hold since 2008 waiting for U.S. presidential approval of the permit to allow the pipeline to cross the U.S./Canada border. President Obama has said he would approve the pipeline only if it did “not significantly exacerbate the climate problem.” Opponents of the pipeline are concerned the pipeline will […]
U.S. Steel has begun to inform their customers of their intention to raise their zinc coating extras effective October 1, 2014. Unlike Nucor, USS did not go back to their 2011 price extras. Based on our quick analysis, the under .020” thru .018” G90 extra is being increased by $1.05/cwt or 11.3 percent. The new […]
One of the Steel Market Update proprietary products is our U.S. Service Center Apparent Inventory Excess/Deficit report and forecast. Once per month, SMU analyzes the MSCI flat rolled steel shipments and flat rolled steel inventories and we calculate whether the steel distributors are either over-inventories (excess) or under-inventoried (deficit) based on our proprietary formula. We […]
Pricing in the HRC futures market has continued slightly upward this week stemming from positive economic data and a bullish outlook within the steel industry. September prices have been trading around $655-667, October prices have been trading between $640-657, and Q4 has traded between $645-651, all about $5-10 improvements week on week. Further down the […]
In the week of August 2nd the four week moving average (4WMA) of raw steel production as reported by the AISI exceeded 1,900,000 tons per week, for the first time since June 16th 2012, (Figure 1). However, capacity utilization at 79.2 percent (4WMA) is still nowhere near where it was before the recession. Capacity is […]
We spent the last two days canvassing as many buyers and mill sellers of steel as we possibly could. Our goal was to gather enough information so we could speak to the development of this market and the direction prices should go from here. What we found is a market that is perhaps stronger than […]
Kloeckner Metals Corp. shipments fell by 3.8 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2014, due to the extended winter, consolidation of sites and the reduction of low-margin business. EBITDA improved by 27 percent from €41 million to €52 million ($55 million to $69.7 million), helped by operational improvements and higher-margins. The company expects US […]
The ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor #7 blast furnace, which underwent a $70 million planned maintenance in the second quarter, is in the ramp up phase. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of this #7 furnace to us,” said Louis Schorsch during ArcelorMittal conference call, “This has been I could say, limping along the last year and […]
We will conduct our early August steel market analysis (survey) beginning first thing on Monday morning. If you receive an invitation to participate please take a few minutes to click on the link which will take you to SurveyMonkey.com where you can interact with our questionnaire. If by chance you would rather direct someone else […]
US Steel did surprisingly well in the second quarter, coming back from a weather impacted first quarter to narrow losses and show operating profit. US Steel reported a net loss of $18 million in the second quarter, performing better than expected. Income from operations came to $132 million. Net sales were $4.40 billion as compared […]
Once per month, HARDI sponsors a conference call for those HARDI members who are involved with the sale and distribution of galvanized steel to the HVAC and related industries. Steel Market Update participates in these calls along with wholesalers around the United States and Canada. Since the last HARDI conference call we have seen a […]
US Steel reported a net loss of $18 million in the second quarter, performing better than expected and narrowing losses. Net sales were $4.4 billion as compared to $4.448 billion in first quarter. Total steel shipments were 5.029 million tons, down from 5.124 million tons in the previous quarter. Flat rolled shipments were 3.527 million […]
I believe US Steel releases earnings after the close of the Stock Exchange on Tuesday and their earnings conference call will be held at 8:30 AM on Wednesday. Due to the issues the company had with two of their mills during the second quarter the expectation is USS will report a loss. I would expect […]
With the announcement of the sale of Russian owned Severstal North America assets to AK Steel (Dearborn, Mountain State Carbon & Joint Ventures) and Steel Dynamics (Columbus) for $2.325 billion, the market is now asking what, or who, is next. There are two mills that are being mentioned. One, Gallatin Steel, a hot rolled mini-mill […]
A special thank you to Pacesetter Steel Service Inc. who has stepped up to sponsor our networking/cocktail reception to be held at the end of the first day of the SMU Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta. For those of you who are unaware the conference will be held at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) […]
On Monday, July 21, 2014 OAO Severstal announced the sale of their two steel mills located in the United States for $2.325 billion. The two mills, Severstal Dearborn and Severstal Columbus were purchased by AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI), respectively. The acquisition of the Severstal assets by two existing steel suppliers is being touted […]
We have had a number of end users and service centers who are against the filing of any new steel trade cases contact us to express their opinions. Most do not want to be identified. We received the following letter to the editor from an executive at a service center who asked that we not […]
Severstal NA has been actively informing their customers that they want hot rolled spot base prices to $700 per ton ($35.00/cwt) and cold rolled and coated to $820 per ton ($41.00/cwt). Other mills are mulling a move and we expect price announcements to be imminent. Whether specific base prices are announced or the mills go […]
Based on SMU sources we understand there are two steel mills, comprising three separate steel plants, that are for sale and could potentially change hands before the end of this calendar year. The two mills are Severstal NA and Gallatin. Severstal NA SMU understands the bids for Severstal NA were due this past Friday. Our […]
US Steel has been one of the leaders in the push to prevent foreign oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from being unfairly traded here in the United States. US Steel recently closed two of their OCTG manufacturing facilities. One of the main reasons provided by US Steel was the flood of OCTG imports from countries […]
The final determination on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) was released on Friday afternoon (Friday, July 11, 2014). The steel industry believes that a positive ruling in favor of the domestic steel industry will prompt a new round of dumping cases aimed at flat rolled products – specifically cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume. However, these […]
For those of you who would like to read the fact sheet sent out by the International Trade Administration (ITA) which contains the US Department of Commerce Final Determination on the OCTG trade case you can click on this link. As I mentioned in one of the above articles, Roger Schagrin of Schagrin Associates is […]
Total US Steel Exports in May were 1,035,608 net tons, down 4.1 percent over April tonnage and down 10.9 percent over May 2013 levels. Eighty Nine percent of May exports were to Canada and Mexico, receiving 559,231 and 363,325 tons respectively. Exports of plate cut lengths were 136,490 tons, up 6.0 percent over April and […]
US Steel agreed in a Northern Illinois federal court on Tuesday to pay $58 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed in 2008 by Standard Iron Works on behalf of direct purchasers of steel products. The suit alleged that eight U.S. steel producers violated federal antitrust laws by restricting production of steel products between […]