Primary Steel & Aluminum Smelting

UBS upgraded ArcelorMittal to Buy from Neutral with a €71 price target, raised from €61, sending the steel producer's shares up 4.6% in Friday's trading. The bank said it expects a large rally in European Union steel prices over the next six months and noted the shares have shed nearly 20% of their value during the past month, leaving the stock oversold and sensitive to any positive catalyst. UBS analyst Andrew Jones calculated that ArcelorMittal shares are fairly valued at roughly €750 per ton spot hot-rolled coil, but free cash flow yields rise to 6% to 8% at €820 to €850 per ton HRC despite substantial growth capital expenditures, with every €10 per ton increase in the European price adding about $325M to the company's EBITDA and about $250M to free cash flow. Jones added that ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt resumed operations at its blast furnace this week, signaling a gradual normalization of European production capacity after a period of curtailments and disruptions. While noting risks to North American HRC pricing and import risk in Brazil and India, Jones said ArcelorMittal is gaining most of the market share from import displacement and is the most liquid play on the European growth theme.

UBS upgraded European steelmakers Salzgitter, ArcelorMittal and voestalpine to buy from neutral on Friday and kept its buy rating on SSAB, saying new EU import quotas that remove about 9 million tonnes of annual imports will tighten supply after a recent pullback in the shares. The broker set price targets of 71 euros for ArcelorMittal, 71 euros for Salzgitter, 64 euros for voestalpine and 120 Swedish crowns for SSAB, implying upside of 31%, 61%, 51% and 21% respectively, and named Salzgitter its top pick because its earnings are about 2.5 to 3.5 times more sensitive to higher EU steel prices than the other three. EU safeguard measures that took effect July 1 cap duty-free steel imports at 18.3 million tonnes a year, with a 50% tariff on anything above the quotas, while blast furnace restarts mainly by ArcelorMittal bring back about 7.6 million tonnes of announced capacity, partly offset by cuts at Taranto and at HKM, which Salzgitter owns. UBS raised its EU hot-rolled coil price forecasts by 2%, 11% and 10% for 2026, 2027 and 2028, now expecting about 820 euros a tonne in 2027 and 805 euros in 2028 against a spot of about 745 euros, and said import parity is above 900 euros a tonne, about 20% above spot, with 1,000 euros not ruled out if demand improves. The broker warned third-quarter results will not show the upturn, forecasting earnings below consensus for ArcelorMittal, voestalpine and SSAB on weak summer demand, the delayed effect of lower prices in May and June and higher energy costs, with Salzgitter the exception at 9% above consensus on higher steel shipments.

Home Product Center Public Company Limited, or HMPRO, has announced a partnership with Tata Tiscon to bring EF steel bars, a low-carbon steel bar produced using electric arc furnace technology from 100% recycled scrap steel, to MegaHome stores nationwide. Part of the scrap steel comes from HomePro customers' electrical appliances through the Trade Old for a New World program. Mr. Theerapong Samphan, Assistant Managing Director of the Construction Procurement Group at HomePro, said that offering EF steel bars this time helps technicians, contractors, and consumers access low-carbon construction materials more easily at an affordable price. Mr. Chaichalerm Bunyanuwat, Senior Assistant Managing Director of Marketing and Sales at Tata Steel (Thailand) Public Company Limited, said the project shows that the circular economy can truly happen in everyday life, when scrap metal from products consumers no longer use returns to the production process through Tata Steel Thailand's EAF technology and is turned back into standard-quality steel bars sold again through MegaHome. Using one ton of steel bars produced with an EAF furnace reduces carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of planting more than 180 trees, and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by about three to four times compared with the BF-BOF steelmaking process. The products carry verifiable environmental information, including EPD, CFP, and the Green Label. Tata Tiscon's product range also includes SD50 high-strength steel bars, which help reduce the amount of reinforcement steel used by up to 20%, and CUT & BEND prefabricated cut-and-bent steel, which helps reduce steel waste at job sites by 10-15%. Tata Tiscon EF steel bars are available today at MegaHome stores nationwide.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called on G20 member states to support the trade approach of President Donald Trump's administration, including addressing excess industrial capacity, avoiding the use of food trade as a tool to pressure other countries, and reviewing the tariff system in place since after World War II. Speaking at the opening of the G20 trade ministers' meeting in Milwaukee, United States, on Wednesday, September 30, Greer also urged a review of the Most Favored Nation principle, or MFN, one of the key principles of the World Trade Organization that requires member states to treat trading partners equally on tariffs, arguing that the unconditional application of MFN may limit countries' ability to respond to market-distorting policies. Earlier, at the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, in early September, all G20 member states except China agreed to take measures to counter non-market economic policies and trade distortions, but China rejected accusations that its industrial policies cause overcapacity, and accused Western nations of using the issue as a pretext for trade protectionism. Meanwhile, a group of 28 Western countries agreed on the sidelines of the G20 meeting to press ahead with discussions on increasing tariffs on steel from China and other countries seen as major sources of overcapacity. Canadian Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu is scheduled to meet Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the sidelines of the meeting on Thursday to push for a trade agreement between the two countries to be completed by the end of this year. Sidhu said Canada's trade with countries outside the United States rose 17% over the past year, an increase worth 33 billion dollars.

Japan, the United States, Europe and 28 other countries and regions held a ministerial meeting on September 30 and agreed on a comprehensive framework to monitor "transshipment" of steel routed through third countries. The measure is aimed at China, and will gather information such as the country where melting and casting took place to ensure transparency in distribution channels. They will share information on the place of production, work to build and strengthen a steel import monitoring system, and exchange information on trade suspected of being transshipped in order to address it. To deal with the damage to domestic steel industries from the influx of cheap steel products, they will take measures such as anti-dumping measures and countervailing duties when appropriate. The 28 countries and regions adopted a ministerial statement at a meeting held alongside the Group of 20 trade ministers' meeting, warning that government subsidies and other support protect unprofitable production capacity, distort trade and weaken market-based producers around the world.

ArcelorMittal SA is aiming to reach a final investment decision by the end of the year on a 5B-real ($961M) expansion of its Pecém steel mill in Brazil, according to Bloomberg News, citing Jorge Oliveira, Chief Executive Officer of the company's Brazilian operations. Speaking on the sidelines of a steel conference in São Paulo, Oliveira said the proposed project would add a hot-rolled coil production line with an annual capacity of 1.5M tons at the facility in the northeastern state of Ceará. The capital expenditure plan reflects ArcelorMittal's strategy to move up the value chain in South America by transforming Pecém's primary slab output into higher-margin rolled steel products. If approved by the board before year-end, construction would mark one of the largest industrial steel investments in the region in recent years.

Metallus has been awarded a single-award, firm-fixed-price Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency to supply steel for critical defense applications, with a maximum ceiling of $995 million over a five-year ordering period. The ceiling represents the maximum amount the DLA may order over the contract term and is not a commitment to purchase that amount. On September 29, 2026, Metallus received an initial delivery order under the contract valued at approximately $125 million, and the company has up to 24 months to fulfill each delivery order. Chief executive officer Mike Williams said the award and initial order mark another key step in the continued transformation of Metallus and reflect the company's proven ability to produce specialty steel that meets the rigorous performance, quality and traceability requirements of critical defense applications. Metallus, based in Canton, Ohio, employs approximately 1,850 people and had sales of $1.2 billion in 2025.

US President Donald Trump has denied an Axios report that his administration offered to ease sanctions on Iran, including allowing access to frozen funds, in exchange for Iranian concessions on its nuclear program. Trump also announced plans to build the largest steel plant in US history, with an investment of about 15 billion dollars. Australia's central bank voted to raise interest rates by 0.25% to 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years and in line with analyst expectations. OpenAI announced it is scrapping plans to launch its new AI model GPT-6.1 Astra, originally scheduled for release in October, after internal testing found the system did not meet the company's safety and human-alignment standards. Anthropic, meanwhile, launched its latest AI model Claude Sonnet 5.5, the second model in the Claude 5.5 family, as it expands its product line ahead of an initial public offering. Samsung Electronics and five affiliated companies plan to invest a combined 1 billion US dollars in Helix Digital Infrastructure, an AI infrastructure company established by KKR, expanding from semiconductors into data centers, power systems, and connectivity networks.