Steel Products Prices North America
January 18, 2019
Foreign Steel: Buyers Not Willing to Take the Risk
Written by John Packard
Steel Market Update spoke with a number of foreign steel trading companies who service the North American market today. There was one very clear theme no matter who I spoke with – steel buyers are not willing to take any risk on foreign steel with spreads less than $60 per ton. A second common theme: the steel buyers are being unrealistic about the prices they believe should be available from foreign sources.
The trading companies with whom we spoke today reported tonnage volumes for first-quarter 2019 on products not purchased by the domestic steel mills were lower. Most reported sales down by at least 10 percent or greater (slabs, billets, hot rolled and some full hard cold rolled are all bought by domestic steel mills). Specialty products and those not rolled by the domestic steel mills continue to be bought foreign as before.
