Foreign vs. U.S. HRC: Rising Prices Level Playing Field

As steel prices around the globe surge in response to the war in Ukraine, the brief competitive advantage domestic prices held over foreign steel has flattened, according to SMU’s latest foreign versus domestic hot rolled steel price comparison. Select foreign HRC prices are anywhere from $138 per ton cheaper than domestic prices to $74 per ton more expensive, after taking freight costs, trader margins and tariffs into consideration.

The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel prices (delivered to U.S. ports) and domestic hot rolled coil prices (FOB domestic mills). This is only a “theoretical” calculation as freight costs, trader margins, and other costs can fluctuate, ultimately influencing the true market spread. This compares the SMU U.S. hot rolled weekly index to CRU hot rolled weekly indices for Germany, Italy and Far East Asian ports.