SMU Data and Models
November 10, 2016
Steel Mill Negotiations: Mills React to Price Increases
Written by John Packard
One of the areas of our focus during our twice monthly flat rolled steel trends survey is how flexible are the domestic steel mills when negotiating spot steel prices with their customers? Over the past three months the mills have been willing to discuss discounts in order to obtain business. We found this on all products: hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume with hot rolled being the weakest of the four.
With the two price increase announcements having been made since our last analysis, we have found a significant change in the negotiating positions being taken by the domestic steel mills.
