Final Thoughts
April 13, 2016
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
I will be doing an article in Sunday evening’s newsletter about the AISI capacity utilization numbers. The AISI produces their “estimate” of steel production and the percentage of capacity utilization based on 50 percent (or fewer) of the mills reporting production data. I have considered not publishing the data at all because, in my opinion, the numbers are more fiction than fact. Especially when considering sheet or flat rolled products which today are much closer to 95 percent than the 72 percent reported by AISI. One reason why their number is so off is due to long products being included in the total calculation. More on this subject on Sunday evening.
Nucor and ArcelorMittal have come out with spot pricing to their customers with hot rolled at $26.00/cwt. I am hearing that NLMK USA is also at $26.00/cwt ($520 per ton) while SDI and North Star Bluescope are at $25.50/cwt ($510 per ton).
