Steel Mills

Nucor Adjust Flat Rolled Steel Prices in Line with Other Mills

Written by John Packard

October 3, 2013

Nucor was the last of the major domestic flat rolled mills to come out with new minimum base price levels on flat rolled steel products. Nucor chose to mimic those of ArcelorMittal and not NLMK or AK Steel whose announcements were slightly different than the rest of the industry.

Nucor advised their customers through use of a letter which was emailed earlier today that their base prices would be as follows “effective immediately:”

Hot Rolled     $34.00/cwt    $680 per ton
Cold Rolled    $39.50/cwt    $790 per ton
Galvanized     $39.50/cwt    $790 per ton

Extras are not included in the base prices referenced above.

On Tuesday, Steel Market Update (SMU) published new indices on flat rolled products. Based on our market analysis we have hot rolled coil averaging $635 per ton, cold rolled at $745 per ton average and galvanized base price averaging $37.50/cwt. Our hot rolled number has been bouncing between $635 and $645 per ton for a number of weeks.

Essentially, the change from the average is approximately $40 per ton higher than our indices.

Prior to the Nucor announcement NLMK USA put out pricing that was $10 per ton less than the above on hot rolled and $20 per ton less on cold rolled and coated.  AK Steel matched all the items except coated which they put at $40.50/cwt base plus extras. Most of the other mills are following ArcelorMittal guidance with the numbers shown above.

There continue to be a few mills who have advised Steel Market Update that they are working with their customers to come up with fair and competitive market pricing.

John Packard

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