Steel Products Prices North America

AK Steel, USS/Posco, California Steel and Essar Steel Algoma Raise Prices

April 8, 2014

More flat rolled steel mills have joined in and raised flat rolled steel prices over the past couple of days.

On Friday, April 4th USS/POSCO sent a letter to their customers advising them that flat rolled steel base prices would rise by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) on all products. UPI opened their June order book for galvanized and announced that they have expanded their thickness range to now include 0.130” min (10 gauge). UPI also advised their customers that they still have cold rolled and hot rolled pickled & oiled availability for May. The mill also has some finished inventory available for immediate shipment.

On Monday, AK Steel put out a press release advising the industry that they are taking hot rolled base prices to $700 per ton ($35.00/cwt). AK Steel is the first to reach the $700 per ton mark on spot hot rolled price offers as the other mills are in the $685-$690 range. AK has not made any spot adjustments on cold rolled and coated products as SMU believes they have no spot tons to sell in those products.

We learned today that Essar Steel Algoma, which has been suffering from ice and other issues limiting the amount of iron ore into their facility, has been running on reduced capacity for a number of weeks. Our sources advise the mill is verbally raising prices on hot rolled to $685 for May production.

California Steel Industries (CSI) sent a letter to their customers dated today (April 8th) advising that their order book is now open and their transaction prices are going up by $20 per ton on hot rolled, HRPO and cold rolled and $30 per ton on galvanized.

All of these price increases come after Nucor raised flat rolled base prices on spot sales by $25 per ton to $685 on hot rolled coil and $815 on cold rolled and coated.

So far, SMU has confirmed price increases out of the mills referenced above as well as Severstal and NLMK USA. We anticipate other mills to follow the increases but many have limited to no spot tons available to sell.