Market Update | August 10, 2022
STEEL INPUT COSTS ARE ON THE RISE
Zinc pricing rebounded this week, climbing to its highest level since mid-June and up over 25% in the last month. Spot iron ore is seeing it’s third consecutive bump in pricing this week, while Pacific Basin met coal pricing ended its recent slide by rebounding back above the $200/mt. Current pricing is at $204/mt, up 8% from the end of just last week.
Input Costs
Zinc pricing rebounded this week, climbing to its highest level since mid-June.
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Zinc pricing climbed to $1.60/lb this week, up over 25% in the last month.
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Spot iron ore saw a bump in pricing for the third consecutive week.
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After sliding below $100/mt two weeks ago, pricing bounced back to $117/mt this week.
- Spot iron ore pricing is up 1.4% from the end of last week and is up 4.1% on a m/m basis.
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Pacific Basin met coal pricing ended its recent slide this week, rebounding back above $200/mt.
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Current pricing is at $204/mt, up 8.0% from the end of last week.
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While pricing is down 72% compared to the recent peak, pricing is only down slightly on a year-over-year basis (7.3%).
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The August Chicago #1 busheling price settled at $405/gt, down $70/gt from July and now down from the peak of $760/gt (-47%) in April.
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The sharp move lower now puts prime scrap pricing at a discount to shredded scrap pricing.
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The current discount ($30) of prime to shredded is the largest discount in recent record history.
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Supply
Domestic raw steel production fell last week, now down for the fourth time in the last five weeks.
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- U.S. steelmakers produced 1.723 million tons at an 78.2% utilization rate.
- This is the lowest weekly output since the first week of February 2021.
- YTD production is now down 3.1% from the same time last year.
Based on preliminary import licenses in August (8 days), the daily average imports were up 11% m/m (+3.3% y/y).
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- Excluding slabs, daily avg imports decreased 13.9% m/m.
DEMAND
The Dodge Momentum Index increased 2.9% in July to 178.7 from the revised June figure of 173.6.
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The Momentum Index is a monthly measure of the initial report for nonresidential building projects in planning.
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In July, the commercial component of the Momentum Index rose 5.5%, while the institutional component fell 2.0%.
- Commercial planning in July was led by an increase in data center, office and warehouse projects, while fewer education and healthcare projects drove the institutional component lower.
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ECONOMIC
Prices paid by consumers continued to climb on a year-over-year basis but slipped slightly compared to last month.
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The Consumer Price Index in July showed prices increased 8.52% compared to last July; while still extremely high, it is down from the 9.06% y/y increase seen in June.
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The CORE-CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis.
- The CORE-CPI was up 5.91% compared to July 2021.
- On a positive, this was the fourth consecutive month in which the year-over-year increase got smaller.
- The month-over-month decline in overall pricing was solely led by a decline in energy pricing.
- Fuel oil led the decline, see an 11% decline from June.
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This material, information and analyses (the “Content”) may include certain statements, estimates and projections prepared with respect to, among other things, historical data and anticipated performance. Content may reflect various assumptions by Majestic Steel USA, Inc. concerning anticipated results that are inherently subject to significant economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies and have been included for illustrative purposes. Content is provided AS-IS.