Steel Products Prices North America
September 10, 2013
OEM View of Upcoming Contract Negotiations with the Domestic Steel Mills
Written by John Packard
Based on a number of conversations Steel Market Update (SMU) has had with service centers over the past couple of working days, there appears to be concern that the domestic steel mills are actively looking to take end user contract business away from the distributors.
While it is still early in the negotiation process SMU is catching signs of at least a couple of the mills treating the distributors differently than the end users. We are being told by a few service centers that the mills are quoting either the same or lower flat rolled steel prices to the end users than the distributors. The thought being that once margin is added the business will go direct to the mills from the end user and not through the service center.
