SMU Data and Models
July 7, 2016
SMU Survey: Mill Negotiations
Written by John Packard
A second key subject addressed in our flat rolled steel survey regards negotiations between the domestic steel mills and their customers. We ask manufacturing companies and steel service centers to comment on whether their domestic mill suppliers are willing to negotiate spot steel pricing on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels.
The less willing mills are to negotiate the better able the mills are at keeping pricing firm. We are looking for trends or changes and we did see that in hot rolled this week where 50 percent of our respondents reported the mills as willing to negotiate HR prices this week. Two weeks ago, and for the past few months, there has been a relatively small percentage of respondents reporting HR prices as negotiable.
