Steel Products
Mill Lead Times Shorter - Affecting Negotiations
Written by John Packard
February 22, 2013
Based on the results of this week’s survey, lead times on hot rolled and cold rolled slid slightly compared to where they were at the beginning of the month. We found aluminized to have dropped by slightly more than half a week from 6.40 weeks down to 5.83 weeks while galvanized lead times actually increased slightly.
SMU lead times, which are weighted averages based on responses from manufacturers and service centers, are much shorter on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized compared to this time last year. Galvalume lead times are only slightly shorter than what we measured during the middle of February 2012 (also see graph at the end of this article).
With the shortened lead times our survey found the domestic mills as willing to negotiate pricing on all four flat rolled products (see below).
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products
Nucor’s weekly HR spot price unchanged, again
Nucor’s consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil remains unchanged for another week – now on an 11-week streak. Nucor’s HR coil CSP, still at $750 per short ton (st), has been at that level since Nov. 12. The spot price for HR from Nucor’s joint-venture subsidiary California Steel Industries (CSI) is also flat […]
Price gap between domestic, offshore CRC narrows
The price spread between US-produced cold-rolled (CR) coil and offshore products tightened in the week ended Jan. 17. Domestic CR coil tags were lower week on week (w/w), while offshore products ticked higher. The result? The US premium over imports shrank. In our market check on Tuesday, Jan. 14, US CR coil prices averaged $895 […]
US HR price premium over imports narrows slightly
Hot-rolled (HR) coil prices ticked down in the US last week, while tags abroad varied. The result: US hot band margin over imports on a landed basis has narrowed to a slight extent. SMU’s average domestic HR price last week was $685 per short ton (st), down $5/st from the week before. US hot band […]
SMU Community Chat: Jan. 22 with Alan Kestenbaum, founder of Bedrock Industries
Alan Kestenbaum, the founder of Bedrock Industries and the former CEO of Stelco, will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat. The webinar will be on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 11 am ET. It’s free to attend. You can register here. We’ll look at Stelco’s recent sale to Cleveland-Cliffs and what made […]
December service center shipments and inventories report
Flat rolled = 77.1 shipping days of supply Plate = 58.1 shipping days of supply Flat rolled Flat-rolled steel supply at US service centers ballooned in December with higher inventories as well as seasonally lower shipments. At the end of December, service centers carried 77.1 shipping days of flat-rolled steel supply on an adjusted basis, […]