Steel Products Prices North America
April 11, 2017
SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Still Stuggling for Direction
Written by John Packard
Flat rolled prices were essentially unchanged this week with the exception of hot rolled coil which seems to have a few more “legs” in the product due to an improving energy market and limited foreign steel imports. The pressure on HRC right now is coming from the two new players: Big River Steel and Acero Junction who are both reported to be below the going offer rates at the rest of the domestic steel mills. Steel Market Update has made the decision to take the initial offers out of these two mills with a grain of salt and we are being advised that, at least in the case of Big River Steel, their new offers are “in-line” with those of the rest of the industry (+/-$10/ton).
We have been hearing of “weakness” in cold rolled and some coated order books. We have seen numbers in coated steels drop by about $20 per ton even as our range have remained the same as last week. In some cases the weakness is being attributed as a hole in a schedule while other reasons are being referenced as a way of fighting foreign steel imports.
