por admin » Mar Jul 06, 2010 9:02 pm
Los precios del acero estan bajando despues de haberse mantenido firmes por meses, potencialmente un mal presagio de la economia de la nacion debido a la desaceleracion de la actividad manufacturera y debido a que los consumidores se tornan mas cautelosos para comprar articulos de precios elevados como carros y electrodomesticos.
La demanda por el acero ha disminuido en China recientemente incrementando los temores de que China podria aumentar sus exportaciones de acero a US y otros mercados.
Los precios del acero cayeron en Unio y las siderurgicas Americanos respondieron cortando su produccion. Al inicio del anio ellos estuvieron aumentado su produccion para satisfacer la demanda creciente debido a la recuperacion economica. En su lugar la demanda se ha estancado.
Industry Cuts Back as Steel Prices Fall
By ROBERT GUY MATTHEWS
Steel prices in the U.S. are declining after holding firm for months, potentially a bad omen for the nation's economy as manufacturing activity slows and consumers grow more cautious about big-ticket purchases, such as cars and appliances.
Domestic demand for steel has recently eased in China, raising fears the country could step up steel exports to the U.S. and other markets. Above, an employee at a factory of Baosteel Group, China's biggest steel maker.
.Steel prices tumbled in June, and U.S. steel mills are responding by cutting production. Earlier this year they were ramping up capacity to meet the growth in demand they hoped would emerge from the economic recovery. Instead, demand has been spotty.
Another wild card for the industry is China. While the rest of the world was reducing steel production and consumption during the recession, China's voracious appetite for building bridges, autos and appliances, helped support global steel prices.
For the most part, China has stepped back from exporting raw steel, in favor of higher-value finished goods. But a recent easing in demand by China's domestic steel consumers has raised fears the country could step up steel exports to the U.S. and other markets.
Worthington Sees Demand, Prices Falling. Access thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More ."There is a very real risk of steel from China being dumped illegally into the U.S. market, despite all the recent trade action," said Michelle Applebaum, of Steel Market Intelligence, a steel consulting firm.
Over the past several years, the U.S. has been aggressive in filing trade cases and using trade laws to prevent China from dumping steel—or, exporting it at less than home-market prices. The U.S. has laws or quotas restricting several types of Chinese-made steel products, including hot-rolled steel, plate steel, pipes and tubes, but Ms. Applebaum said those measures aren't as effective as the ones used by Europe and Canada.
Amid the slump in U.S. steel prices, which is expected to persist at least through much of the summer, ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, is planning production cuts at its Indiana mills.
Russia's Severstal, which operates several mills in the U.S., is expected to idle its blast furnace in Maryland this month due to slack demand. Severstal spokeswoman Elizabeth Kovach said the facility is being idled because of a slowdown in the construction-steel market.
Analysts don't expect demand to pick up anytime soon. That means steelmakers are likely to keep a tight rein on production for fear of sending prices even lower.
Further steel-price declines could be good news for big steel consumers, lowering costs for builders, heavy-equipment makers and others. But prices would have to stay low for a while to have a lasting impact, since most heavy steel users rely on annual or biannual contracts to lock in prices from their suppliers.
Other steel consumers order on an as-needed basis. "We are seeing some of our customers canceling orders for hot-rolled coils out of Houston,'' said Alex Marshall, a sales manager at Texas-based steel distributor A&M Steel Co.
"Customers are putting off orders thinking that they can pick up the same steel, but at a cheaper price, a couple weeks from now,'' he said.
U.S. steelmakers, expecting the economy to be stronger by now, restarted too much capacity earlier this year, a move that has come back to haunt them, said Charles Bradford, an analyst at New York-based consulting firm Affiliated Research Group LLC. Domestic steel prices for hot-rolled steel coil, used for a wide range of products, such as automobiles and appliances, fell 4.5% in June to about $630 a short ton.
Mr. Bradford said he thinks the price could fall an additional $80 a ton in coming weeks. He estimated that the price of hot-rolled coil could fall as low as $550 a ton.
Steel buyers don't think prices are likely to head back up until August at the earliest, when steel demand tends to increase as the seasonally slow summer draws to an end.
Mitchell Ryan, a middleman who buys hot-rolled coils to makes appliance parts, said his inventory is growing. "I stopped buying coils in late May," he said. "Right now, I am going to work through some inventory and buy more later because prices are going to continue to fall."
Up until recently, the U.S. steel market avoided the softening that began this spring in other parts of the world. That's because the U.S.'s ample domestic supplies of steel's raw materials, including iron ore and coal, and the high cost of ocean shipping keep the U.S. relatively isolated from the global market. Still, imported steel typically accounts for about 20% of the U.S.'s steel needs.
U.S. steel imports have increased slightly over the past few months, rising about 4% in May, as domestic output expanded and overall demand crept higher. In June, American steel mills were operating at about 72% of capacity, up from around 64% at the beginning of the year.
Steel prices outside the U.S. dropped 5.1% in June, exceeding the U.S. decline, according to MEPS International, a British steel consulting firm. Hot-rolled steel prices in China fell 2.4% in April and 3.6% in May, and are now around $590 a metric ton, about $40 a ton less than in the U.S.
The falling global price of steel is also affecting prices of other commodities. Spot prices for iron ore, one of the main ingredients used in steel production—have fallen by about 6% since May to about $138 a metric ton on the global market, according to the Steel Index, a steel research firm.