Service Centers
May 7, 2017
Service Center Inventories: Balanced, Too High, Too Low?
Written by John Packard
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been struggling to make sense of the most recent carbon flat rolled inventory numbers for service centers. What we learned from the MSCI did not match the conversations we were having with service center steel buyers across the country. SMU has been working on ways to provide a separate and independent review of distributor inventories. One of the ways is through our twice monthly flat rolled steel market trends analysis. We have added questions focused on inventories and, perhaps more importantly, how service centers are reacting to their current inventory situation either by becoming more active or less active buyer of flat rolled steels.
First, let’s review what MSCI indicated for carbon flat rolled inventories on the service centers floors as of the end of March (April numbers will most likely be out during the week of May 15th). Total carbon sheet (flat rolled) stood at 1.82 month’s supply.
