Seaborne Freight The dry bulk market may have bottomed out in May and has been steadily creeping higher during June. The Baltic Dry Index closed at 823 on Friday, June 26. The BDI peaked on November 5, 2014 when the Index was at 1484 and dropped as low as 509 on Feb. 18, 2015. The […]
This piece, written by Peter Wright, combines our own data analysis with recently published opinions about the iron ore, metallurgical coal and zinc markets that we find credible. Iron Ore: The Platts IODEX of 62 percent Fe delivered North China recovered to $61.25 on March 22nd, continued its upward trend in June then on June […]
Steel Market Update found it interesting as we received a number of comments regarding Al Plummer’s letter to the editor regarding foreign steel imports, pricing and potential dumping. What was most interesting was the vast majority of the comments received were from other steel traders… One trader responded to the continued threats of filing dumping […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Last month, Alfred (Al) Plummer, Sales Manager for Hanwa American Corporation, made a presentation about the steel industry at a regional meeting of the Association of Steel Distributors (ASD). Over the past few days Mr. Plummer has been communicating with Steel Market Update and we thought that the items being discussed should be of interest […]
This is the first time we have dedicated a piece specifically to raw materials prices. It combines our own data analysis with expert opinion published in the last couple of weeks that we find credible. Iron Ore As of this past weekend, the Platts IODEX of 62% Fe delivered North China recovered by $6.25/dmt in […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Steel prices continued their slide this week. The CRU was down $14 to $488/ton, which has put downward pressure on futures contracts for nearby months. April and May are trading approximately $10 lower this week with the former at $495/ton and the latter closer to $510/ton. While nearby months have been influenced by the deteriorating […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. The Chicago Fed Mid-West Manufacturing Index which was suspended earlier this year was expected to be re-instituted this month but […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered has been increased by one this month to thirty six. We have added the price of coking coal FOB the Australian East Coast to the raw […]
Today’s hot rolled coil and ferrous scrap futures article is written by Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading at Kataman Metals. The market seems to have bottomed out with the CRU coming in at $640 yesterday. Positive sentiment has outweighed any negatives in the market with AK Steel recently announcing a price hike of $20/ton […]
The collapse of spot iron ore prices resulted in a surge in iron ore swaps, options and futures in September. Options hit the highest ever volume at 15.6 million tonnes followed by futures at 25 million tonnes according to TSI data. In total, over 62 million tonnes of futures and derivatives were cleared by exchanges […]
The hot rolled futures market has been active this week. After weeks of very little movement, selling has pushed futures prices into a more dramatic backwardation. Nearby months such as November and December have fallen $7 to $632. Further down the curve, HRC prices have fallen slightly more with all months in 2015 falling $8 […]
Steel buyers think the domestic mills are riding high at today’s prices. Iron ore prices are dropping, coking coal is down and scrap has been treading water and the word is it may dip a bit as we enter the month of October. Steel buyers think the mills are floating on the top of the […]
Today’s hot rolled coil futures (HRC) article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. In his article he will review the S&P 500, copper pricing, crude oil pricing, steel, iron ore and ferrous scrap futures trading: Well the S&P 500 reached its high […]
For our plate customers, SSAB announced a $40 per ton plate price increase effective immediately. We will see if it sticks in the marketplace. We have a couple of minor bugs and tweaks we are working out of our systems and then we will release our Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution workshop for […]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch gave their quarterly global steel outlook on April 8. BofAML predicts demand for finished steel in China will grow 4.4 percent in 2014. Chinese crude steel production is expected to increase 4.6 to 815 million tons. The outlook is for a trend of slowing but positive growth. Despite mill closings […]
We are beginning to see a new push away from a fragmented steel mill supply base as closures of capacity coupled with the recent acquisition of ThyssenKrupp Steel USA by ArcelorMittal/Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metals Corporation (AM/NS Calvert) are reducing the number of players and the tons in the game. Over the past two years we […]
Met coal prices are plummeting and oversupply is the problem, says Goldman Sachs. On Friday, Goldman cut its metallurgical coal average price estimate for 2014 to $141 per metric ton from $150 due to higher Australian output and slower demand from China along with “limited U.S. supply rationalization.” Bank of America Merrill Lynch agrees that […]
An ousted president, deadly violence, military insurgence and a possible secession—the crisis in the Ukraine has been moving at an alarming speed in the last several weeks. As the Ukraine struggles to create a new government, economic sanctions are increasingly being considered by the global powers to sway preferred outcomes. The US and the EU […]
In the United States approximately 60 percent of the steel produced is through electric arc furnaces (EAF) used by so-called “mini-mills.” Electric arc furnaces use primarily scrap along with pig iron or DRI (direct reduced iron) to charge the furnaces. All of the long products (rebar, bar, angles, beams) are produced through EAF technology and […]
Shipping markets in the Gulf are seeing some strong rates as producers are anxious to fix and load cargoes before the holidays and year end according to the November 20th MID-SHIP Report. Shipping rates in the The Cape and Panamax markets have eased in the past two weeks but Chinese steel mill restocking of iron […]
Severstal NA reported sales volume increased 2.6 percent quarter-over-quarter to 1.2 million tonnes in the third quarter due to improved sales of CRC and galvanized products. Revenue was reported at $993 million, up 4.2 percent from $953 million in the second quarter. Higher sales volume and pricing along with lower costs at Severstal Columbus resulted […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Iron Ore slid this week to its lowest level since mid-December. As of March 15, ore price at Tianjin Port reported by The Steel Index was $134.6 /dry tonne (Fe62%)—a drop of 8 percent in one week. Coking coal fell as well, dropping to $161 a tonne on March 14 from […]
Written by: Sandy Williams This year Nucor plans to spend $280 million on its Louisiana DRI facility and approximately $260 million towards its natural gas related investments. Essar Steel Minnesota is in talks to build a joint venture DRI plant. Voestalpine and Northstar Bluescope Steel are both considering DRI facilities. Severstal just postponed a DRI […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Natural gas is providing cost savings for steel plants while at the same time creating more demand for steel products used in pipelines, drilling equipment and rigs. It is a win-win situation for the steel and the natural gas industries One of the ways natural gas is utilized by the steel […]