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Our Advance/Decliner Index rebounded as China returned to the market, which had a more powerful impact as 33% of the price changes this week came from China, as …more
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Chinese steel production estimated by the China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) overnight came in at 1.916 million tonnes per day (mtpd), up some 4% from the last 10 days …more
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The MSCI September report had some good news in that overall inventories dropped some 2.2% with the bulk of the decline coming from flat-rolled, which has been the …more
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Steel Market Production Cuts – Nucor is planning to idle the Marion, Ohio rolling mill for a week beginning October 21 and will also idle the Kankakee, Illinois bar mill from October 28 to November 3. Both of the outages are for routine scheduled maintenance.
Steel Market Production Increases – Indian steelmaker JSW announced that a scheduled 21 day maintenance outage at the No. 2 hot strip mill was completed ahead of schedule and increased capacity from 3.5 mtpy to 5.0 mtpy.
Steel Market Production Increases – Russian steelmaker Severstal plans to begin operations at the new 1 mtpy Balakovo longs facility in 2Q13.
Steel Market Production Increases – Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau Long Steel NA has delayed an expected 5-10 day maintenance outage from October to November 1st at the 800,000 tpy Beaumont rolling mill.
Steel Market Production Cuts – Korean steel production will decrease in October as Dongbu Steel plans to cut HRC levels by 50,000t and Hyundai Steel plans to cut rebar production by 60,000t, due to weakness in their respective markets.
Sources: Steel Business Briefing, American Metal Market, SteelOrbis
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According to trade press, this morning USS has quietly told customers of a pending $40/t price hike in flat-rolled, leading the industry’s first since July, after six straight …more
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Steel Market Production Increases – Evraz North America announced that production at the 200,000 tpy Portland, OR spiral pipe mill will resume in 1H 2013 after being idled since 2009.
Steel Market Production Increases –Esmark Steel Group will restart the Yorkville cold-rolled mill that was purchased during the liquidation of RG Steel’s assets. The mill will begin production in early 2013 with plans to purchase 300,000 tpy of hot-rolled substrate initially, and ramp up to 500,000 tpy “over the next two years.”
Steel Market Production Cuts – Indian steelmaker Tata Steel Europe stated that output was reduced from 18m tpy to 14m tpy this year, while also commenting that maintenance on the Port Talbot No. 4 blast furnace will be completed in December – although the company has not decided if it will be restarted.
Steel Market Production Cuts – ArcelorMittal Galati announced that the No. 1 plate mill has been idled because of decreasing demand. The outage is temporary and operations will “resume immediately once the market situation improves.”
Steel Market Production Increases – Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau plans to begin production of the new 300,000 tpy SBQ rolling mill at the Kaylani Gerdau Steels facility in India by year end after operations of the 350,000 tpy blast furnace started in August.
Steel Market Production Increases – Indian steel producer Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) is increasing crude steel capacity at the Vizag facility from 3.3 mtpy to 6.3 mtpy by year end. RINL has plans to eventually increase capacity to almost 11.5-12m tpy , of which 4.0-4.5m tpy would be flat-rolled production.
Sources: Steel Business Briefing, AMM, SeeNews
For the week ending October 13, 2012, weekly domestic raw steel production declined 1.2% to 1.736 million tons (mt), the third consecutive week at the lowest level since January 2011, and some 13.4% below May’s peak.
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 the last month’s reported production & operating rate. What this means is that when production is changing, the weekly data is actually understating the change.
Capacity utilization fell again to 70.3% this week, below last week’s 71.1% and like production, is at the lowest level since January 2011.
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
The spot reference price for 62% Fe iron ore cfr North China was up 9.9% to $114.50 for the week ending October 12, 2012, after staying at $104.20 for each day of the Chinese Golden Week holiday, and is now 28.7% higher than the recent low of $89.00 on 9/7/2012. Early week momentum faded however, as iron ore prices declined a total of 2.7% after peaking at $117.70/tonne on Wednesday.
For the first quarter of 2012, the spot price for iron ore 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
The number of active oil and natural gas rigs in the United States fell by 2 to 1,835 for the week ending October 12, 2012, down 0.1% from the previous week and 9.3% from a year-ago – remaining at the lowest level since May 2011.
The highest weekly rig count in the United States since 1940 was recorded on December 28, 1981, at 4,530; the lowest was recorded on April 23, 1999, at 488.
The number of rigs in Canada fell 3.0% to 361 from 372 last week and remained some 29.5% below the year-ago level.
The highest rig count for Canada was 727 on February 3, 2006; the lowest was 29, recorded on April 24, 1992.
Source: Baker Hughes Inc.
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Consistent with a pickup in China’s overall export economy in September, net steel exports surged 30% from August, despite government-driven production cuts that have …more
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