Market Update | March 1, 2023

 

WEEKLY DOMESTIC MILL INCREASES CONTINUE

Cliffs announced another price increase this week, the fourth in as many weeks, pushing pricing up $100/t. This is the seventh round of price increase announcements, totaling roughly $460/t. Most notably, the minimum HRC pricing is now at $1,100/t. NLMK increased pricing internally as well as their production remains restricted and raw material costs continued to rise. They are now pushing HRC to $1,200/t and CRC/HDG to $1,400/t.

 

Input Costs

As the recent up and down movement for zinc continues, pricing declined slightly this week.

    • Zinc pricing came in at $1.40/lb this week, down from $1.42/lb previously but remains near its lowest level in over a month.

 

Met coal pricing fell back this week, sliding sharply to $362.00/mt, down from last week’s recent high of $390.00/mt.

 

The Biden Administration added steep tariffs to Russian pig iron, the 70% tariff will take effect in April

    • Russia was the largest supplier of pig iron to the U.S. in 2021 with 2.07 million mt, but that volume fell to 637,973 mt in 2022 and was entirely composed of imports from the January-May period.

    • Overall U.S. pig iron imports dropped 24% in 2022 from the previous year as U.S. steelmakers were unable to find an adequate replacement for Russian supplies.

 

 

Supply

After declining slightly last week, U.S. raw steel production rebounded this week.

    • U.S. steelmakers produced 1.674 million tons at an 74.9% utilization rate.
    • This was the highest weekly output since mid-October.
    • Despite the recent bump higher, YTD production is down 6.1% compared to last year.

 

Preliminary February import licenses, (27 days), showed carbon flat rolled imports are down 30% from the same time in January.

    • Coated import licenses are showing the lowest import level since November.

 

DEMAND

New orders for durable goods slipped, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in January.

    • New orders came in at a $272.3 billion rate, down 4.5% from December and now down for the second time in the last three months.

    • Excluding the transportation component, new orders were up slightly from December.

    • New orders for both primary metals and fabricated metal products increased in January, climbing 0.5% and 0.1%, respectively.

    • After climbing for sixteen consecutive months, durable good shipments declined, sliding to a $277.2 billion rate.
    • This was down 0.1% from December and was driven lower by a sharp 1.7% decline in transportation equipment shipments.
    • While shipments of fabricated metal products were flat, primary metal shipments were up 0.8% from December.
    • Inventories of durable goods declined in January after climbing for twenty-three consecutive months.

 

Demand for mortgages continued to decline this week, now down for the third consecutive week.

    • Applications for mortgages to buy a home dropped 6% last week and are 44% lower than the same week last year.

    • The Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Application Index is now sitting at a 28-year low.
    • Data on inflation, employment, and economic activity, continue to signal that inflation may not be cooling as quickly as had hoped which continues to push rates higher.

 

Construction spending continued to slow in January, now down for the second consecutive month.

    • Total construction spending came in at a $1.826 trillion rate in January, down 0.1% from December but up 5.7% from the $1.727 trillion rate in January 2022.

    • Despite the continued year-over-year increase, this was the lowest growth since September 2020.
    • The decline in January spending solely came from the residential sector, which declined 0.6% from December to a $856.9 billion rate.
    • This was the eighth consecutive monthly decline in residential spending.

    • Non-residential spending increased in January, climbing 0.3% to a $968.7 billion rate.

    • Non-residential spending was up on a year-over-year basis as well, climbing 15.9% from the $835.8 billion rate in January 2020.
    • Non-residential spending now accounts for roughly 53% of all spending, its highest percentage since November 2020.

 

PRICE

Cliffs announced another price increase this week, the fourth in as many weeks, pushing pricing up $100/t.

    • This is the seventh round of price increase announcements, totaling roughly $460/t.

    • Cliffs also noted that minimum HRC pricing is now at $1,100/t.

    • Cliffs/USS/AMUSA all followed quickly with similar increases of their own.

 

NLMK increased pricing internally as well as their production remains restricted as their raw material costs continued to rise.

    • They are now pushing HRC to $1,200/t and CRC/HDG to $1,400/t.

 

 

 

 

 

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.