Steel Market Production Increases – Steel Development Co. (SDCO) is reportedly considering constructing a new 1.7 million tpy flat rolled steel mill somewhere in theSouthern United States.

Steel Market Production Increases – Russian steelmaker Evraz will be conducting maintenance work on its Evraz ZSMK operations inEastern Russiafor two and a half months starting in September during which time billet and slab output will be cut by half.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Hungarian steelmaker Dunaferr plans to close its 170,000 tpy capacity Lorinci plate mill on December 1^st.

Steel Market Production Increases – Indian steelmaker JSPL has started production on its new 2 million tpy capacity plate mill at its Angul plant in easternIndia; slab is currently being sourced from a neighboring steelworks until the plant’s 1.6 million tpy meltshop is commissioned at the end of the year.

Steel Market Production Increases – A second steel plant has begun operations inAfghanistanthat will increase the country’s steelmaking capacity by 5% and will produce rods and poles for construction.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, American Metal Market, SteelGuru

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August OCTG prices dropped some 0.3%, as seamless prices moved sideways and welded prices dropped 0.8%. Some 60% of the products tracked posted price …more

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Steel Market Production Cuts – According to the China Iron and Steel Association’s (CISA) production estimate, Chinese crude steel production in the middle ten days of August fell to 1.93 million tonnes per day, down nearly 2% from the first ten days of August.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Chinese steelmaker Baotou Steel will be conducting maintenance on its hot-rolled coil (HRC) production line starting September 5-6 for a period of 8-11 days during which time total output will be cut by 80,000 tonnes.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Bayi’s Nanjiang Iron and Steel project is expected to achieve a 1.5 million tpy production capacity by the end of this year before reaching an annual capacity of 3 million tpy in 2013.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Kungang has begun trial production on a new 800,000 tpy capacity H-beam mill.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Shandong plans to bring the first phase of a steel project online this October for an increase in rebar and wire rod capacity of 500,000 tpy each.

Steel Market Production Increases – The first phase of Baoji Petroleum Steel Pipe Co.’s Karamay pipe project is expected to reach a capacity of 60,000 tpy by September from the current 40,000 tpy and ultimate reaching 120,000 tpy when completed in 2013.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing, Reuters, SteelOrbis, SteelGuru

Weekly domestic raw steel production for the week ending August 25, 2012 fell 0.7% to 1.863 million tons (mt) from 1.876 mt last week but still up a nominal 0.1% year-on-year.

We would caution readers that only half of the AISI reporting companies release their weekly production in “real time” so the other half of this data is estimated – using prior months’ reported production & operating rate. What this means is that when production is changing as it is right now, the weekly data is actually understating the change.

Capacity utilization also fell from 75.9% last week to 75.4% this week, slightly below the year-ago level of 76.1%.

The lowest production level since the recession began was 800,000 tons for the week of December 27, 2008, while the highest level was 2.005 mt for the week of May 12, 2012. The lowest capacity utilization rate since the recession began was 33.5% for the week of December 27, 2008; the highest was 81.1% on May 12, 2012.

Source: AISI and Steel Market Intelligence

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According to a wide variety of press reports today, Thyssen (TKA) management is saying they expect to get “at least” book value for their Americas operations and confirmed previous comments of… more

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After a surprising 1% jump in production for the first ten days of August, CISA overnight reported a 2% drop for the middle part of the month, as average daily production…more

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The spot reference price for 62% Fe iron ore cfr North China fell 9.8% to $99.40 for the week ending August 24, 2012, the lowest level since the week ending December 4, 2009. Iron ore prices have now fallen for three straight weeks for a total decline of 14.8% over that time period.

For the first quarter of 2012, the iron ore price averaged $141.84, and for 2Q, $139.35; this compares to an average of $176.90 for 1H 2011 and $167.59 for full-year 2011. The post-recession low was $59.10 on March 27, 2009, while the high was $190.19 on February 17, 2011.

Source: The Steel Index