Steel Products Prices North America
February 11, 2020
Steel Buyers' Comments on Pricing...
Written by John Packard
Steel buyers weighed in today as Steel Market Update conducted our sweep of the markets to determine where spot prices are this week, and to see what is on the minds of the buyers. Here are some of the comments made to SMU earlier today:
A manufacturing company shared their perspective with these thoughts, “Where prices will go depends on the particular market. HR will go down into the $550’s before discount is applied, and a case can be made that we are already there. CR and HDG will directionally follow Houston imports. The HR/CR spread is uncomfortably high, but weakness in energy markets considered, the spread will likely remain high. We need oil at or over $60/bbl for the HR/CR spread to begin compressing back to more comfortable levels. Slab pricing from SE Asia and Brazil are both showing interesting levels of strength compared to Black Sea. It might suggest that there is a theoretical floor under pricing for material produced from re-rollers – at least for now.”
