Severstal, Russia's largest steelmaker by production, said it's finalizing a strategy for its unprofitable North American unit and will hold on to the most efficient operations. The unit had a loss of $236 million before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in the second quarter, the Cherepovets-based company said in a statement. Severstal as a whole posted a $290 million net loss, compared with net income of $1.5 billion a year earlier. The company is committed to operating in North America and will retain it's most efficient units with a view to making them even more flexible and efficient. Severstal spent $3.7 billion since 2004 acquiring assets in the region, with the unit accounting for 21 percent of revenue in 2008. The collapse in steel demand in the fourth quarter of last year forced the company to idle steelmaking at its Severstal Wheeling and Severstal Warren businesses in the U.S. The company's third consecutive net loss included a $167 million foreign exchange gain. Sales dropped 54 percent to $2.85 billion. Severstal's Lucchini European unit posted a second-quarter Ebitda loss of $86 million.

ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany's largest steelmaker, reduced planned capacity at a unit of its Alabama stainless project by more than two-thirds to help curb costs. The cold-rolling mill will begin operations with a capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes a year in the second half of 2010, the company said in a statement. The previous target was 350,000 tonnes. The company is seeking to slash debt amassed from building mills outside of Germany by selling subsidiaries, reorganizing its five units as two and shelving start-ups of new plants. The company will in the year through September post its first full- year loss since Thyssen Stahl AG and Krupp Stahl AG merged in 1999 on cost overruns at a Brazilian plant and overhaul charges. It is heading for a full year pretax loss of more than 2 billion euros ($2.88 billion) including special items. In addition to an expected pretax loss in the high hundreds of millions of euros for the year to September, the company anticipates restructuring costs of about 1.5 billion euros, Die Welt reported, citing sources close to the company. It is also able to delay a steel unit at the Alabama mill by as long as two years. The steelmaker expects net debt of less than 3.5 billion euros ($5 billion) by the end of the fiscal year. The figure was 3.12 billion euros at the end of the steelmaker's fiscal third quarter, 47 percent higher than a year earlier. Full-year spending should be below 4.5 billion euros. ThyssenKrupp, which suffered delays due to heavy rainfall at its 4.3 billion-euro Brazilian slab mill, said one blast furnace at the facility will begin operations in the middle of 2010 and a second the next year after demand declined. Vale SA, the world's largest iron-ore producer, boosted its stake in the project in July to help get it built. German raw steel output will decline by about 30 percent to as little 31 million tonnes this year as the industry's largest clients rein in purchases

The US Commerce Department decided to impose duties of as much as 31 percent on steel pipe from China, agreeing with American producers led by U.S. Steel Corp. that the imports were supported by unfair subsidies.
The average duties on $2.8 billion in annual imports of the pipe, used in oil and gas wells, will be 21.3 percent, the Commerce Department said in an e-mailed statement announcing the preliminary decision. The tariffs may help U.S. Steel and other domestic producers weather a drop in demand for the pipe following the collapse in oil prices last year. It also may be a precursor for a number of trade complaints against China.
President Barack Obama must decide a separate case on imported Chinese tires by Sept. 17. The pipe case, the largest so-called countervailing duty complaint filed against Chinese-made products, was brought by the United Steelworkers union; U.S. Steel, the largest U.S.- based steelmaker; U.S. operations of Evraz Group SA, Russia¿s second-largest steelmaker; and Pennsylvania-based Wheatland Tube Co. After the ruling is published in the Federal Register, importers of the product - known as oil country tubular goods - will have to deposit duties of the assigned amount, pending a final ruling later this year by the Commerce Department and a separate decision by the U S International Trade Commission. Chinese officials have spent the past months trying to head off tariffs for the steel pipes and the separate case brought by the United Steelworkers union against Chinese auto tires. In the steel-pipe case, U.S. manufacturers saw their gross profits almost triple to $2.42 billion in 2008 from the previous year, according to the International Trade Commission.
Record oil prices drove demand for the product. While imports from China surged, U.S. production and employment increased too. Chinese pipe imports came in “like locust” last year, and a duty of as much as 31 percent could block most or all new imports, she added. China has already filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization arguing that the U.S. punishes China twice for the same subsidies. The U.S. categorizes China as a subsidized economy, allowing higher anti-dumping duties, and then imposes tariffs for the alleged subsidies too, according to its WTO complaint.

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works became the only Russian steel major to turn a profit in the second quarter after boosting output of high-end products at the expense of cheap, semi-finished steel. Magnitogorsk (MMK), controlled by billionaire Viktor Rashnikov, squeezed a net profit of $59 million from a quarter that left red ink on the balance sheets of its peers in the world's fourth-largest steel-producing country.
Russia's No.3 steel producer reversed a first-quarter loss of $110 million and said it expected the recovery to continue into the third quarter of 2009, when steel production is forecast to rise 35 percent from the preceding three months. MMK expects third quarter revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) will show a 50 percent increase from Q2 levels. Steelmakers in Russia, which accumulated more than $30 billion in debt to expand when markets were booming, have been hit hard by the decline in orders from the construction and automotive sectors during the global economic slowdown.
Severstal, the country's largest steel maker, and Novolipetsk Steel, both posted second-quarter losses, while No. 2 producer Evraz Group lost nearly $1 billion in the first half. MMK boosted crude steel production by 4 percent quarter-on-quarter to 2.16 million tonnes. It increased output of downstream products, which have been further processed and sell at higher prices, by 36 percent in the second quarter. In contrast, the company produced no commercial billet or slab--emi-finished products that require further processing. MMK launched a new mill in July with capacity to roll 1.5 million tonnes of plate for use in oil and gas pipelines, plus a colour-coating line, which should enable it to boost sales from the third quarter onwards.

Macquarie has raised its global steel price outlook for 2009 and iron ore contract prices for next year, citing a strong recovery in China and ensuing tightening in global supply of the steelmaking ingredient.
As per report, Macquarie raised its forecast for average hot rolled steel prices in 2009 by 12.3% to USD 538 a ton and increased it forecast for 2010 iron ore benchmark prices to a 10 percent rise from a previous 5 percent rise.
It added that "However, we remain cautious about steel prices from mid 2010 on due to the overhang of steel making capacity that still exists. Iron ore spot prices have risen above the 2009 contract level agreed between Australia and Japan and after a recent correction, we think it can rise to a consistent premium of 10 percent to 15 percent above that price, allowing 2010 benchmark settlement to be achieved at 10 percent gain compared with our previous forecast of 5 percent rise." Macquarie is also raising its 2010 steel price forecast by 8.6 percent to USD 614