Spot Check of Mill Lead Times

Twice per month Steel Market Update conducts a review of the flat rolled steel markets and one of the items on our questionnaire is how far out are steel mill spot lead times. We also follow lead times as published by the domestic mills to their customers which we share with our readers from time to time. With the recent spat of price increase announcements, one way to ascertain if they are successful is to measure the amount of time it takes for the mill to promise new spot orders at this time compared to where they were prior to the announcements being made.

In the December 29, 2015 issue of the Steel Market Update newsletter we produced an article about mill lead times based on the published lead time sheets shared with us by customers of the steel mills. At that time AK Steel was showing their hot rolled lead times as being 9-10 weeks, Nucor Berkeley at 5-6 weeks and NLMK USA at 3-4 weeks.