Steel Market Update participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call sponsored by HARDI. Once per month, HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration, Distributors International) conducts a call amongst the HVAC wholesalers and supporting companies about the status of the hot dipped galvanized sheet and coil markets. The very first thing which needs to be mentioned is […]
We have two markets developing for flat rolled steel imports: hot rolled imports are expected to actually begin to shrink from here as the offers out of Russia and Turkey for hot rolled pricing are approximately $600 per ton or higher. Since most foreign steel buyers tend to be buyers of large tonnage and thus […]
The US steel industry is contemplating challenging a trade agreement with Russia that governs imports of hot rolled steel from Russia. A suspension agreement currently exempts Russian steelmakers from antidumping duties by setting a cap and minimum price on HRC imports. According to a Reuters article on Tuesday, US steel companies say the HRC pricing […]
The US steel industry is contemplating challenging a trade agreement with Russia that governs imports of hot rolled steel from Russia. A suspension agreement currently exempts Russian steelmakers from antidumping duties by setting a cap and minimum price on HRC imports. According to a Reuters article on Tuesday, US steel companies say the hot rolled […]
The following article was written by Peter Brebach, CEO of Iron Angels of Colorado. Peter is a trader who imports pipe and tube products into the United States and is well versed on the current oil country tubular goods (OCTG) issues facing the domestic steel mills. Here is his article on the subject: Import licenses […]
Media sources from Serbia report that Esmark Steel Group is in negotiations for a partnership with steel company Zelezara Smederevo. Bojan Bojkovic, financial director of Zelezara, said Esmark representatives visited the factory last week, as reported by American Metal Market. According to sources at Esmark, negotiation information released in Serbia was in violation of confidentiality […]
Trying to keep up with steel prices and production is proving to be quite an exercise. As we were preparing to publish we were chasing a story about AK Steel having issues with their Ashland blast furnace. At the same time we are gathering data from large buyers that is taking the lower end of […]
A federal crackdown is needed on the import and dumping of cheap products in the U.S. said US Steel Corp CEO Mario Longhi to attendees at the West Virginia Manufacturers Association Leadership Summit on Monday. Longhi, known for his strong stance on foreign import trade regulations, told manufacturers at the meeting that stronger trade laws […]
SMU Price Momentum Indicator Adjusted to Lower from Neutral: Steel Market Update conducted our early June flat rolled steel market analysis this past week. The results of our survey, coupled with information being gathered independently of our survey have prompted SMU to revise our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral. We now believe […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released final census data regarding exports of steel out of the U.S. steel mills this past week. According to the US DOC data, the domestic mills exported a total of 1,079,723 net tons of steel products during the month of April 2014. This is in line with the previous two […]
The terms Buy America and Buy American are not interchangeable. CSI Executive VP, Finance & Administration Brett Guge explains the difference: “The longstanding historical standard for direct government procurement is “Buy American,” which requires only that the steel products used in government projects must have been “substantially transformed” in the U.S. “Buy America,” on the […]
US Steel has another unplanned outage, this time at their Gary Works facility. The furnace went down on Sunday and is expected to be down for anywhere from three to six weeks according to SMU sources. The furnace, referenced as #8 by US Steel, is the smallest of the four operating furnaces at the Gary […]
I was asked a number of times today – in a couple of different ways – why Steel Market Update has not adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral where it has been for about one month to Lower. The reality is we have been watching spot flat rolled pricing quite closely to see at […]
US Steel says it will indefinitely idle two tubular manufacturing facilities in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and Bellville, Texas in early August. US Steel reported that the decision is a result of poor business conditions due to unfairly traded tubular steel products imported into the United States. The shutdown of the two facilities will impact approximately 415,000 […]
Something has to give. US Steel announced the closure of two of their OCTG production facilities. The McKeesport facility has a capacity of 315,000 tons of OCTG per year while the Bellville operation capacity is 100,000 tons of OCTG on an annual basis. Total US Steel production capacity of oil country tubular goods is 2.8 […]
For those of you who are paying attention to our website you might have noticed we added a new sub-menu under the Resources tab. The new menu is called “The Truth About Selling Steel” and we have attempted to split out those articles associated with sales from our Steel Buyers Basics series of articles many […]
As usual we will spend a few moments taking a look at the month of May in our rear view mirror to see what transpired. SMU Price Momentum Indicator was adjusted during the month from Higher to Neutral as we detected a change in the supply/demand dynamics with the return to full production at US […]
As quickly as repaired blast furnaces come back online at US Steel and ArcelorMittal we are seeing them taking down more steelmaking equipment. SMU received word that ArcelorMittal Cleveland Works restarted the C-5 blast furnace early Monday morning, May 26. The C-5 blast furnace has been down for a couple of weeks resulting in the […]
Five members of the Chinese military have been charged with economic cyber-espionage against American companies including US Steel, Alcoa, Westinghouse Electric Company, Allegheny Technologies Inc., United Steel Workers Union and SolarWorld. The military unit allegedly hacked into private sector companies to gain trade secrets between 2006 and 2014 to give competitive advantages to Chinese companies. […]
It is well known that Dan DiMicco, the former CEO of Nucor Steel, has been an advocate of holding the Chinese steel mills to tougher standards. He has been opposed to imports of Chinese steel into the United States since most of the industry is government controlled and, in his opinion, unfairly traded. In light […]
The “Buy America” plan for federally subsidized projects is problematic for two major U.S. steel mills owned by foreign companies. The push to use American sourced steel products in infrastructure projects is keeping NLMK USA and California Steel Industries (CSI) out of the running for bids on projects—a problem the companies are hoping to rectify […]
The “Buy America” plan for federally subsidized projects is problematic for two major U.S. steel mills owned by foreign companies. The push to use American sourced steel products in infrastructure projects is keeping NLMK USA and California Steel Industries (CSI) out of the running for bids on projects—a problem the companies are hoping to rectify […]
The terms Buy America and Buy American are not interchangeable. CSI Executive VP, Finance & Administration Brett Guge explains the difference: “The longstanding historical standard for direct government procurement is “Buy American,” which requires only that the steel products used in government projects must have been “substantially transformed” in the U.S. “Buy America,” on the […]
There has been a debate which goes back to the 1930’s regarding what “Buy American” means when it comes to steel products. The issue is whether those mills who do not make steel, such as NLMK USA (in their Pennsylvania plant) and California Steel Industries as well as the former ThyssenKrupp plant in Calvert, Alabama […]
It has been a very busy last 24 hours for Steel Market Update as we try to stay on top of all of the important news items, pricing, conduct our mid-May flat rolled market analysis and work on completing arrangements for our September Steel Conference. We learned that US Steel Gary Works has all of […]
US steel service centers shipments for all steel products during the month of April were 3,087,300 net tons, an increase of 3.6 percent from the March shipments, and an increase of 4.9 percent from April 2013 levels. Steel inventories at the end of the month were 8,617,500 tons, an increase of 4.3 percent from the […]
Steel Market Update attended SMDI’s “Great Designs in Steel” conference on May 14. This was the 12th year of the popular GDIS conference, and it was well attended with over 1200 auto steel players. The focus of the conference was on auto light weighting through the use of advanced high strength steels (AHSS). There were […]
On Wednesday, Steel Market Update adjusted our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to Neutral from Higher. Our Price Momentum Indicator had been pointing toward Higher prices ever since March 25, 2014. Over the past seven weeks, hot rolled coil prices advanced from $630 to a high of $685 per ton based on the Steel Market Update […]
The following article was originally posted as a blog on the Steel Market Update (SMU) website: The Russian parent company to Severstal NA has responded to requests about the potential sale of their USA assets which include the Severstal Dearborn and Severstal Columbus flat rolled steel mills. Steel Market Update reported over the weekend that […]
SMU sources advised us on Wednesday that the steelmaking operations at U.S. Steel Great Lakes (Ecorse) in Michigan had begun. This afternoon, US Steel confirmed that the start-up process was underway with no further elaboration or comment. We anticipate that the mill will begin making prime steel within a few days to a week. Our […]