Nerds of Steel - The Steel Industry Blog

US flat products imports climb 6% in February

Jessica Wagner — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:53:38 +0000

Based on reported import licenses, US flat products imports increased 6% from 432,000 short tons in January to 456,000 tons in February. This can be compared to 548,000 tons of flat products imports in February 2009. Hot rolled imports showed the highest import volume gain by rising 20,000 tons in February while cut [...]

Gerdau and Gerdau Ameristeel 2009 earnings

Tony Taccone — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:28:49 +0000

Gerdau and Gerdau Ameristeel announced Q4 and full year 2009 financial results last week. Gerdau’s press release can be found here and Gerdau Ameristeel’s is located here. Gerdau finished off the year with a very strong Q4 EBITDA per ton of $176, slightly edging out Ternium. Check out the results for companies we follow on [...]

Ternium 2009 results

Tony Taccone — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:28:23 +0000

This morning Ternium released financial results for 2009. The press release can be found here. As has been the case for several years, Ternium continued to be among the top performers tracked on the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet. For the full year of 2009, the company achieved average EBITDA per ton of $100. This [...]

World crude steel production rises 25% year on year – January 2010

James Moss — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:03:28 +0000

At least that’s the headline from worldsteel which published world crude steel production data for January today. Of course that’s a rise of 25% comparing January 2010 to January 2009. The press release is here and you can mess about with all the data in the Nerds spreadsheet below. The more interesting analysis is likely [...]

US long products imports decline 5.1% in January

Jessica Wagner — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:29:11 +0000

Based on reported import licenses, US long products imports declined 5.1% from 166,000 short tons in December to 158,000 tons in January. This can be compared to long products imports of 264,000 tons in January 2009 and 385,000 tons in January 2008. Imports dropped significantly for wire rod in particular from 96,000 tons in December [...]

ArcelorMittal 2009 earnings

Tony Taccone — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:40:01 +0000

ArcelorMittal recently posted 2009 earnings. The press release can be found here. For the year ArcelorMittal achieved an average EBITDA per ton of $74, which is quite remarkable given the difficult environment the industry faced in 2009. It is also the best number we’ve seen so far among the companies tracked in the Nerds [...]

2010 GDP growth and steel demand forecast

Tony Taccone — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:10:15 +0000

The IMF recently released an updated forecast of global GDP growth for 2010. As many of you know, I’m fond of using the historical relationship between GDP and steel demand to forecast steel demand growth. In fact, last year about this time I provided a forecast of 2009 global steel demand using the latest available [...]

US flat products imports rise 2% in January

Jessica Wagner — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:44:29 +0000

Based on reported import licenses, US flat products imports increased 2% from 405,000 short tons in December to 412,000 tons in January. This can be compared to 532,000 tons of flat products imports in January 2009. Hot dip galvanized imports showed the largest gains rising by 16% followed by hot rolled imports which [...]

Steel Dynamics – 2009 financial results

Tony Taccone — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:08:08 +0000

Steel Dynamics announced Q4 and full year 2009 financial results yesterday. The press release can be found here. STLD’s EBITDA per ton for the full year was $54, the best we’ve seen so far among the companies we track in the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet.

US demand forecast – 2010 and beyond

Tony Taccone — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:47:54 +0000

Last week I spoke at the AMM State of Steel Conference in Florida. Although I was on a construction panel, I was asked to provide a forecast of 2010 steel demand for the US. As many of you know, we believe the main drivers of steel demand in the US are the NAFTA vehicle build [...]