-
May 2012
24 May 2012
ArcelorMittal will extend its research into anti-pollution practices through the development of special steel products for the automotive industry, the company told Metal Bulletin on Thursday May 24.
-
24 May 2012
Earnings at Russian steelmaker Severstal fell by 27% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of 2012 on a weak performance by the domestic production division, the company said on Thursday May 24.
-
24 May 2012
Trade lawyers debating recent steel cases at the Wire Rod Supply Chain Conference largely disagreed over the effectiveness of US trade remedies, but they agreed that the laws are an integral part of steel trade.
-
24 May 2012
US steel imports fell 2.3 percent to 2.72 million tonnes in April from more than 2.78 million tonnes the previous month but were 17.6 percent above 2.31 million tonnes a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
-
24 May 2012
The continued use of illegal trade practices by a number of so-called trading "partners" threatens to keep the U.S. economy from full-blown recovery, according to Nucor Corp. president and chief operating officer John Ferriola.
-
24 May 2012
To boost US manufacturing growth, the Federal Reserve must implement a rules change to effectively discourage banks from stockpiling money, according to Jim Kerkvliet, vice president of sales and marketing at Gerdau Long Steel North America. Due to an editing error, a story in the May 23 edition incorrectly stated that any rule change would encourage banks to stash money.
-
24 May 2012
US manufacturing appears poised for a revival despite headwinds in Europe and on Capital Hill, according to Drew Greenblatt, president of Baltimore-based Marlin Steel Wire Products LLC.
-
24 May 2012
Uneven US trade law enforcement remains a top concern of wire industry participants, according to Leggett & Platt government policy and legal affairs strategist Amy DeArmond.
-
24 May 2012
Historically low natural gas prices could give U.S. steelmakers and manufacturers a competitive advantage in the global economy, a Lincoln Electric Co. executive said.
-
23 May 2012
US imports of steel beam products appear on course to fall dramatically in May compared with April, if the first two weeks of the month are any indication.
-
23 May 2012
Facing continued imports of downstream wire and wire products, US manufacturers are either joining the trend and buying foreign material or experiencing increasing competitive difficulties, according to industry executives.
-
22 May 2012
Fiscal troubles and government gridlock have thrown the fate of the infrastructure construction sector into doubt, according to one analyst.
-
22 May 2012
More wire rod from China has begun arriving at US ports and will continue to do so in the coming months, according to one trader.
-
22 May 2012
A host of indicators appear to be signaling better times for the US wire rod market but imports remain a concern, according to an executive at a domestic wire rod producer.
-
22 May 2012
The 24-hour news cycle might be projecting another global recession in the near term, but most macroeconomic indicators are actually pointing to modest growth in both the immediate future and years ahead, according to Clare W. Zempel, principal at Fox Point, Wis.-based economic analysis firm Zempel Strategic.
-
22 May 2012
Polish merchant bar producer Huta Labedy has until the end of May to make a binding offer for a minority stake in compatriot steelmaker Huta Pokoj, according to an official in the central European nation’s state treasury.
-
22 May 2012
Rautaruukki has signed a contract worth €11 million ($14 million) with France-based Alstom Power to supply the steel frame for a power plant in Narva, Estonia, the Finnish group said on Tuesday May 22.
-
22 May 2012
The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into the proposed €2.7 billion ($3.45 billion) merger of stainless steel makers Inoxum and Outokumpu, it said on Tuesday May 22.
-
22 May 2012
The expansion project at ArcelorMittal’s Monlevade unit in south-eastern Brazil has been suspended indefinitely because of poor demand, a company executive said this week.
-
22 May 2012
German independent steel trader Heine + Beisswenger has set up a subsidiary in the Netherlands, at Deventer, to benefit from local demand, general manager of the Dutch spin-off Lennard Keulen told Metal Bulletin.
-
21 May 2012
London Metal Exchange official three-month steel billet prices dropped to $425/435 on Monday May 21, from $440/450 on May 18.
-
21 May 2012
French steelmaker Laminés Marchands Européens has listed a brand with the London Metal Exchange with effect from Monday May 21, the bourse said.
-
21 May 2012
Italian steel producer AFV Acciaierie Beltrame has listed its Beltrame San Didero brand with the London Metal Exchange, the bourse said on Monday May 21.
-
21 May 2012
The London Metal Exchange has added material from Italian longs producer Beltrame to its list of approved brands for trading on its steel billet contract.
-
21 May 2012
Global crude steel production in April went up slightly year-on-year, showing a 1.2% increase, according to the World Steel Assn (worldsteel).
-
21 May 2012
ALJ Regional Holdings Inc. posted stronger results in its fiscal first half as sales volumes and prices jumped compared with the same period a year earlier.
-
21 May 2012
Spot prices for rebar in China could see another drop this week as the biggest domestic longs producer cut prices for late May, while prices of raw materials and semis continue to fall.
-
21 May 2012
Tokyo Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker using electric arc furnaces, this week kept all its list prices unchanged for June delivery.
-
21 May 2012
Polish steel supplier ThyssenKrupp Energostal has installed new equipment at its logistics centre in the south of the country for the processing of flat rolled products.
-
18 May 2012
Tata Steel’s financial results for the fourth quarter of its 2012 financial year (January-March 2012) fell year-on-year, with its European operations weighing down results.
-
18 May 2012
British-based steel stockholder Barrett Steel has acquired two stockholding subsidiaries of the Murray Group, saving more than 40 jobs across the two sites, a spokesperson for the group said on Friday May 18.
-
18 May 2012
Steel distributor firm Bowim has recorded a net loss of 3.68 million zloty ($1.07 million) for the first quarter of 2012, according to a statement the Polish company has lodged with the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
-
18 May 2012
Turkish wire rod export prices have been cut by $10 per tonne in an attempt to entice consumers back to the market.
-
18 May 2012
ArcelorMittal will sell its steel subsidiary Skyline Steel and Astralloy to US-based Nucor Corp, the company said in a statement on Friday May 18.
-
18 May 2012
London Metal Exchange official three-month steel billet prices dropped to $440/450 on Thursday May 17, from $470/480 on May 16.
-
18 May 2012
Nippon Steel is extending its production cuts of H-beam and sheet pile at its Kimitsu works and will adjust H-beam output at its Sakai works “according to the supply and demand situation” due to its dealers’ stubbornly high inventories.
-
18 May 2012
US steel mills shipped 8.5 million net tons in March, up 1.3% from 8.4 million tons from the previous month, according to American Iron and Steel Institute data.
-
17 May 2012
Margins at Russia’s fourth-largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), improved in the first quarter of 2012, compared with the previous three months, due to higher sales by its European assets and the relaunch of a facility at its long steel division, it was revealed in the company’s financial results on Thursday May 17.
-
17 May 2012
A slowdown in sales has pushed Turkish rebar export prices down by $5 per tonne for June rolling.
-
17 May 2012
Turkish mini-mills have held export prices steady for the third consecutive week to encourage sales for June rolling.
-
17 May 2012
Spanish, Portuguese and Italian steel mills have lowered their prices by €15 ($19.1) at the top end of the range to boost domestic demand, market sources told Metal Bulletin this week.
-
17 May 2012
Spanish and Italian mills have increased their rebar export prices by €5 ($6.4) per tonne in the past week, as the euro/dollar exchange rate draws in consumers.
-
17 May 2012
The US steel industry could benefit from an upturn in the private housebuilding sector, according to figures released by the US Census Bureau.
-
17 May 2012
Steel mills in Northern Europe have cut prices by €10 ($12.7) in the past week in an effort to woo local consumers, market sources told Metal Bulletin.
-
17 May 2012
China’s steel prices continued to slide on Thursday May 17 on weak market sentiment.
-
17 May 2012
Steel orders from Japan’s manufacturing sector recorded a month-on-month drop in March, but strong rebounds in the construction industry and exports lifted overall demand by 5.8% to 6.34 million tonnes.
-
17 May 2012
Aichi International Thailand, a subsidiary of Japan’s Aichi Steel, will start commercial production at its new forging plant in Pinthong Industrial Estate, Chonburi province in Thailand in June.
-
17 May 2012
Latin American steel mills produced 6.1 million tonnes of crude steel in April 2012, up by 5% compared with the same month in 2011.
-
16 May 2012
Prices for commodity-grade medium steel sections within Europe are likely to stay nearly unchanged over the next six months, with only raw material prices guiding the market, stockholders told Metal Bulletin this week.
-
16 May 2012
Finnish steelmaker Rautaruukki will begin negotiations with employees as part of its project to improve competitiveness through efficiency measures including redundancies, the company said on Wednesday May 16.
-
16 May 2012
ArcelorMittal España’s decision to idle the blast furnace at its Asturias division will not have any long-term effects on employees, a company spokesman told Metal Bulletin on Tuesday May 16.
-
16 May 2012
Mid-sized steel traders and stockists in the Gulf Co-Operation Council nations have seen a renewed crunch in payment collections from clients in the past week, and fear that it poses a threat to an already slow trading environment.
-
16 May 2012
China’s steel markets remained sluggish on Wednesday May 16 with both spot and futures prices recording falls.
-
16 May 2012
Output at ArcelorMittal’s steelmaking unit in Kazakhstan was reduced after a fire at the plant killed two people, the company said late on Tuesday May 15.
-
15 May 2012
Keystone Consolidated Industries Inc. reported a modest pullback in net income in the first quarter due to a $2.9-million lower defined benefit pension credit.
-
15 May 2012
Czech railway parts supplier Bonatrans Group has reached agreement with compatriot company Moravia Steel, majority owner of Trinecke Zelezarny (TZ), to jointly acquire the ZDB Group’s wire-drawing mill near Ostrava.
-
15 May 2012
Billet import prices into the Gulf remained static this week, as low demand for the product echoed the market situation for flat and long products.
-
15 May 2012
Import prices for rebar into the Gulf region remained steady early this week as offers came down closer to the level of transactions.
-
15 May 2012
Revenues at Germany-based SKW Stahl-Metallurgie rose by 12% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012 owing to a slight rise in demand from the steel industry, the group said on Tuesday May 15.
-
15 May 2012
Brazilian long products mill Votorantim Siderurgia posted a 7.6% fall in first-quarter steel sales, the company's parent company, Votorantim Industrial, said.
-
14 May 2012
Central Steel & Wire Co. has appointed Philip Kennedy as director of sales for its south region and Andrew Steward as territory sales manager.
-
14 May 2012
London Metal Exchange three-month official steel billet prices fell sharply on Monday May 14 to $445/455, down by $25 from levels of $470/480 on Friday May 11.
-
14 May 2012
CIS mini-mills have cut billet prices by $10 per tonne for June rolling to encourage consumer interest in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena).
-
14 May 2012
Russia’s NLMK has commissioned a 5.8 million tpy hot metal desulphurisation unit for its Lipetsk steelmaking facility.
-
14 May 2012
Metal Bulletin’s Daily Ferrous Scrap Index fell to $444.16 per tonne cfr Iskenderun on an HMS 1&2 (80:20) basis on Monday May 14, down from $446.93 on May 11.
-
14 May 2012
Egyptian Iron & Steel (Hadisolb) made $25.2 million in steel sales in March 2012, although it produced less than half its target output for the month, the company said this week.
-
14 May 2012
Mechel-Service Romania, part of Mechel Service, has opened a new warehouse complex at Brasov to sell low-carbon and stainless steel finished products to the country’s domestic market.
-
14 May 2012
Sluggish demand and plentiful scrap supplies have seen CIS-origin pig iron prices drop by $5-10 per tonne in the past week.
-
14 May 2012
Wire producer Bekaert made €895 million ($1.16 billion) in consolidated sales in the first quarter of 2012, down by 2.6% from the corresponding quarter a year earlier, after a drop in demand from the sawing wire sector.
-
14 May 2012
A rate cut by China’s central bank has failed to give Chinese spot rebar prices a shot in the arm as lower ex-works prices and weak demand strike a cautious tone in the market.
-
14 May 2012
Workers protesting against closures at ArcelorMittal’s Florange steelworks in eastern France took their grievances to the steelmaker’s annual general shareholders meeting in Luxembourg last week, the company told Metal Bulletin on Monday May 14.
-
14 May 2012
Brazil-based mining and steelmaking company CSN expects the long steel products division it is developing to benefit from synergies with its cement division, as well as its own flat steel distribution chain, sales director Luiz Martinez said on Friday May 11.
-
14 May 2012
Iran’s crude steel output rose 15% in its first calendar month, figures show, defying sanctions and leading some to believe that the country can be self-sufficient as early as 2015.
-
14 May 2012
The contraction in steel trading and consumption in the UAE has been reflected in the product range of even some of the most successful players, and Utmost Building Materials is a good example of this.
-
12 May 2012
Prices for most traded metal commodities fell in April and are now well off peaks from 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index (PPI) report released Friday.
-
11 May 2012
Italy’s open trading terms could exacerbate the current oversupply of steel in the market even further, sources in Milan told Metal Bulletin this week on the sidelines of the Eurometal Steel Net Forum.
-
11 May 2012
Italian steel exports to countries outside the European Union rose by 24.5% year-on-year to 1.448 million tonnes in January-March 2012, according to the Italian steel industry association (Federacciai).
-
11 May 2012
Spot rebar prices fell further on Friday May 11 as raw materials prices continued to soften and Shagang, China’s largest longs producer, announced a price cut.
-
11 May 2012
Malaysia’s Southern Steel (SSB) has formed a joint venture with Belgian company Bekaert for the manufacture and sale of specified steel wires in Southeast Asia.
-
10 May 2012
ArcelorMittal Brasil expects to achieve increased iron ore capacity of 3.5 million tpy at its Andrade mine in the fourth quarter of 2012, the steelmaking parent group said in its first-quarter global earnings report.
-
10 May 2012
European mills will be forced to make significant cuts in production in the next few years, delegates said at the Eurometal Steel Net Forum in Milan on Thursday May 10.
-
10 May 2012
Bleak news wherever we look. We see examples of low prices for all steel products being achieved in China, India, Brazil, the USA and Europe. The Russian market is weak and the CIS mills are now eyeing all export markets to get rid of serious tonnage.
-
10 May 2012
European demand for steel will not improve in 2012, Ulrich Becker, president of Eurometal and chief operating officer of Klockner & Co, told the Eurometal Steel Net Forum in Milan on Thursday May 10.
-
10 May 2012
Stable ferrous scrap prices from US suppliers have kept Turkish billet export prices steady for the second consecutive week.
-
10 May 2012
Chicago-based derivatives market operator CME Group cleared its first 9,000 tonnes of steel billet swaps in the first week of May, a spokesperson from the exchange told Metal Bulletin on Thursday May 8.
-
10 May 2012
Concerns over Europe’s continuing debt crisis, stagnating development in many industrialised nations and weakening growth in Asia have caused German longs producer Saarstahl to adopt a cautious outlook for 2012.
-
10 May 2012
Earnings at ArcelorMittal’s Long Carbon Americas & Europe division were $437 million in the first quarter of 2012 due to higher prices, according to a financial results statement published on Thursday May 10.
-
10 May 2012
Rebar import prices into Gulf Co-operation Council countries narrowed this week as a spread, although low demand continued to hamper major transaction flows.
-
10 May 2012
ArcelorMittal South Africa (Amsa) experienced a challenging quarter for its chemicals and coke business in the first three months of 2012 because of unforeseen ferro-chrome smelter closures, the company said on Thursday May 10.
-
10 May 2012
Spanish and Italian steel mills widened the range of rebar prices to attract local demand, market participants told Metal Bulletin this week.
-
10 May 2012
Net profits at Al Jazeera Steel Products rose by more than 12% in the first quarter of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011, as a new record for its merchant bar production and a rebound in pipe demand boosted earnings, the company’s latest financial statement shows.
-
10 May 2012
ArcelorMittal’s earnings fell by nearly a quarter year-on-year in the first three months of 2012, as the company’s European flat products unit continued to operate at a loss.
-
10 May 2012
Lower energy costs, specifically for natural gas, are driving new technology and investment in the steel industry and have the potential to start a steelmaking renaissance in North America, according to a panel of industry executives at the AISTech conference in Atlanta.
-
10 May 2012
Industrial consumers in Seattle could face a 30 percent or greater increase in electric power rates by 2018 if the city adopts a proposed series of hikes that Nucor Corp. says could discourage future investment in its steel bar mill there.
-
09 May 2012
The Chinese government needs to push for a restructuring of the country’s steel industry as market forces alone will not be enough, Zhang Xiaogang, president of Anshan Steel said.
-
09 May 2012
Representatives from the American steel industry have welcomed the coming into force next week (May 15) of the USA’s latest free-trade agreement (FTA), agreed with Colombia.
-
09 May 2012
TMK Ipsco, the North American division of Russian pipe manufacturer TMK, has begun development of a facility in Odessa, Texas, the company announced this week.
-
09 May 2012
Spot rebar prices in China may fall further, as more traders are expected to cut prices to seal deals amid sluggish demand and negative market sentiment.
-
09 May 2012
Vietnam’s apparent long steel consumption fell 15% in April as costs of borrowing remained high, the Vietnam Steel Assn (VSA) said.
-
09 May 2012
Iron ore and steel shipments by Chile’s Compañía de Acero del Pacífico (CAP) will increase by 5.1% and 3.5% respectively in 2012, the group said in a presentation for investors on Tuesday May 8.