Final Thoughts

The steel community was probably disappointed this evening when President Trump failed to mention anything about the Section 232 investigation that has been hanging over the heads of the industry for one year. We will all need to wait to see if the president will do anything on the subject of steel and aluminum imports. In the meantime, January imports are trending toward 2.9 million tons – a spike in imports at a time when a reduction was anticipated. However, most of the flat rolled products are lower than year-ago levels and the 12-month averages. The one product that sticks out like a sore thumb is OCTG (oil country tubular goods). As the energy sector improves, OCTG imports spike. So, we did not get an answer this evening and we will have to wait for another week, month or longer until the final announcement is made.

I tried to provide more clarity to the various price indices by reporting on the offers being received out of the domestic steel mills. Our sources were asked to provide not only their transaction prices, but to also provide what they were getting out of their domestic sources for new spot offers this week. In many cases, we were seeing price offers rising by $20 to $50 per ton, depending on product and supplier.