A quick look at a few of the bigger things affecting our business this week.
Steel: Prices are still climbing, just at a slower pace. Nucor raised hot-rolled coil another $5/ton to $1,160, with its West Coast joint venture up to $1,220. SMU’s broader average actually held flat week over week at $1,180/ton — the first real pause in weeks. One thing worth watching: steel import licenses jumped 9% in July, the highest level since last summer. That’s still a small crack in the wall, not a flood, but it’s the first sign that some import relief could be on the way eventually.
Oil: A rough week, and it’s not over. Talks between Oman and Iran over reopening the Strait of Hormuz fell apart on August 10 after Iran came back with a list of demands — full U.S. troop withdrawal, unfreezing assets, reparations, tolls on ships — that one analyst compared to “a child’s wish list to Santa Claus.” ANS jumped $4.58 that day to $83.11. Things got worse from there: Iran attacked two Abu Dhabi oil tankers in the strait midweek, and Brent is now up roughly 5% for the week, pushing toward $90-plus and within range of $100. On top of that, the interim U.S.-Iran ceasefire is set to formally expire today, and the IEA just warned of the widest global oil supply deficit in five years. No sign this settles down soon.
Infrastructure: Some real progress, with a catch. The Senate voted 90-6 to push the infrastructure funding deadline from September 30 out to December 11 — the House still needs to act, expected when they’re back in session late this month. But that extension only covers the core highway/transit authorizations, not the roughly $36.8 billion a year in advance appropriations that fund grant programs like Mega Grant, Bridge Formula, and rail/transit funding. Those programs are looking at cuts of 50-100% even with the extension in place. If any of your pipeline touches those specific grant programs rather than core highway funding, it’s worth checking which bucket it falls into.
Bottom line: Steel’s holding closer to flat for the first time in a while, oil is heading the wrong direction again with real geopolitical risk behind it, and infrastructure funding got a partial reprieve that doesn’t cover everything. Reach out if you want to talk through what any of this means for your project.
Steel: Steel Market Update, GMK Center, Yieh Corp. Oil: Petroleum News, Fortune, Barchart. Infrastructure: ENR, Roads & Bridges, Holland & Knight.