Steel Market Production Increases –ArcelorMittal’s new $60m production line for heat-treated plate products in Burns Harbor, Indiana began production earlier this month.

Steel Market Production Increases – China’s Tangshan Iron and Steel, a subsidiary of Hebei has begun construction on a 1.3 million tonnes per year ERW pipe plant in Tangshan city.

Steel Market Production Increases – German-based large-diameter pipe producer Europipe has resumed production at its Mulheim an der Ruhr works and its 200,000 tonne per year pipe mill in northern France.

Steel Market Production Increases – Iraqi rebar producer G.K. Steel has installed a new induction furnace. The furnace takes the company’s total finished production capacity to 80,000 tonnes per year.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese line pipe maker Shengli has entered into a joint venture agreement with pipe distributor IRI De Colombia to manufacture and distribute OCTG and SSAW pipes to the US market. The operation will reportedly have a capacity of 150,000 tonnes per year of both OCTG and SSAW pipe.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Turkish integrated flat steelmaker Erdemir began relining the No. 2 furnace at its Eregli works in Northern Turkey yesterday. The relining of this furnace will take 1.8 million of Erdemir’s 9 million tonnes per year of liquid steelmaking capacity offline for 90 days.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, NWITimes

Weekly domestic raw steel production rose 0.9% to 1.975 million tons (mt) for the week ending April 14, 2012, a post-recession high and up some 8.6% compared to the year-ago level.  The lowest production level since the recession began was 800,000 for the week of December 27, 2008.

The capacity utilization rate climbed to 79.9% compared to 79.2% last week and was higher than the year-ago level of 74.3%.  Like weekly production, capacity utilization came in at the highest level since the recession began.  The lowest capacity utilization rate since the recession began was 33.5% for the week of December 27, 2008.

Note: AISI weekly production data only includes real-time input from 50% of producing members; the remainder of the data is a guesstimate based on each company’s prior-month production and therefore the weekly AISI data lags when there are production cuts or increases going on.

Source: AISI and Steel Market Intelligence

New Report Preview

Driven by weakening flat-rolled volume (down 1.7% versus a normal seasonal increase of 2.7%), March MSCI shipments declined 0.5%, bucking the normal seasonal trend of a 2.3% uptick.

While total inventories in tons declined a modest 0.4%, flat-rolled inventories rose 0.7% while all other products showed declines of 1.2-4.7%.

Overall months’ supply (MOS) declined to 2.3 in March from 2.4 in February due to one extra shipping day, but would have been flat at 2.4 if the number of business days in the month were adjusted.

Our full report is available to subscribers and provides further thoughts on March distributor shipments and inventories by product as well as implications for steel equities.

For a free trial subscription, please contact us.

Steel Market Production Cuts – According to the China Iron & Steel Association, China’s daily steel output fell by 1.5% in the last ten days of March compared to the previous ten days. During this period there were at least five major steelmakers under maintenance.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Italian longs producer Leali has announced that it is permanently idling its rebar rolling mill at Roe Volciano. The 400,000 tpy capacity mill has been idled since early 2011.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Lebanon’s only steelmaker Kfoury Metals has suspended production due to the high cost of fuel oil used to operate its captive power plant. The producer has 180,000 tpy billet capacity that is used to supply its 400,000 tpy rebar mill.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese seamless pipe producer Anhui Tianda Oil Pipe plans to double capacity at its 300,000 tpy high-grade seamless plant by the end of 2012. This move would bring the company’s total seamless capacity to 950,000 tpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Saudi Steel Producer SABIC is close to completing construction of its new long product works. The new facility will have 1 million tonnes per year of EAF-based billet capacity and a 700,000 tpy wire rod mill.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, MetalBulletin

Steel Market Production Increases –Libyan Iron & Steel Co intends to start production of coils this month at its hot strip mill pending final approval to restart by Gecol, the Libyan General Electric Company.

Steel Market Production Cuts –ArcelorMittal has reported that it intends to temporarily idle one of the two blast furnaces at its plant in Gijon, Northern Spain, in August for maintenance. The plant produces slabs, billets and blooms for re-rolling into long products.

Steel Market Production Cuts – The Polish steelmaking group, Alchemia is closing the meltshop at its seamless pipe plant Huta Batory in Chorzow, Southern Poland, following a strike by workers at the meltshop on April 2. The meltshop had a production capacity of 145,000 tpy.

Source: Steel Business Briefing

New Report Preview

Our Advance/Decliner Index continued to show stability, rising modestly from 71% last week to 74%; our Index has now traded in a tight band of 71-74% over the last four weeks (any reading over 50 means that the number of price increases exceeded the number of declines).

The small uptick was driven by our China Index rising from 55% to 75% as prices for most types of steel products trended higher on the back of a stronger-than-expected PMI reading.  Our Ex-China Index was relatively stable, falling from 76% from 73% as pricing in East Asia, the CIS and Europe showed less strength. An uptick in the US sub-index partially offset this slight softening, with both Nucor and Severstal following ArcelorMittal’s second sheet price increase last week.

Our full report provides further thoughts about global steel pricing trends and our outlook as well as implications for steel equities.

For a free trial subscription, please contact us.

Steel Market Production Increases – U.S. Steel Corp. plans to run 15 turns on its No. 3 galvanizing line at Hamilton Ohio. The line was originally planned to run 10 turns but increased to 15 because of increased demand for thin gauge material.

Sources: American Metal Market