Foreign Hot-Rolled Prices: Little to No Advantage Over Domestic

The temptation to purchase foreign hot-rolled coil (HRC) at a bargain has all but faded again, with adjusted foreign prices now offering little or no advantage over domestic steel, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis. After taking freight costs, trader margins and tariffs into consideration, foreign HRC prices for two of the three regions covered in this analysis offer no potential discount to domestic steel this week. The one region still holding an advantage offers less than a 1% potential discount to US HRC. The potential discount on imported products began to narrow back in May and consecutively declined each week through last month.

The following calculation is used by SMU to identify the theoretical spread between foreign HRC prices (delivered to US ports) and domestic HRC prices (FOB domestic mills). Our analysis compares the SMU US HRC weekly index to the CRU HRC weekly indices for Germany, Italy, and Far East Asian ports. This is only a theoretical calculation as costs to import can vary greatly and often fluctuate, ultimately influencing the true market spread.