Steel Products Prices North America

SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Mills Get What They Want

Written by John Packard

April 8, 2014

This week was a tough one to figure out where transaction prices actually are at this moment in time. What makes it challenging is mill offers appear to be firm from mill to mill with very little wiggle room at this moment. The second issue making things tough to evaluate pricing is we had a flurry of orders over the last two weeks and now the only buyers in the market are the unprepared (and they tend to not be the one’s we speak to). Third, you have a number of mills who have temporarily suspended their order books or, are sold out until June and haven’t yet opened their order books. All in all it makes for a very challenging situation.

The mills will be happy with SMU this week as we did take into consideration price offers and how firm the mills are in holding the line at the price levels announced. Not every mill has made a price announcement but, not every mill has steel available to be sold into the spot market.

Here is how we are seeing prices this week:

Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $650-$660 per ton ($32.50/cwt- $33.00/cwt) with an average of $655 per ton ($32.75/cwt) FOB mill, east of the Rockies. The lower end of our range increased by $20 per ton compared to last week while the upper end remained the same. Our average is now $10 per ton higher compared to last week. Our expectation is for hot rolled pricing to move higher over the next 30 days or longer due to supply disruptions and limited availability in the spot HRC market.

Hot Rolled Lead Times: 3-6 weeks.

Cold Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $780-$800 per ton ($39.00/cwt- $40.00/cwt) with an average of $790 per ton ($39.50/cwt) FOB mill, east of the Rockies. The lower end of our range increased by $30 per ton compared to last week while the upper end increased by $10 per ton. Our average is now $20 per ton higher compared to last week. SMU anticipates cold rolled prices will move higher over the next 30 days or longer due to supply disruptions and limited availability in the spot HRC market.

Cold Rolled Lead Times: 5-8 weeks.

Galvanized Coil: SMU Base Price Range is $770-$800 per ton ($38.50/cwt- $40.00/cwt) with an average of $785 per ton ($39.25/cwt) FOB mill, east of the Rockies. Both the lower and upper ends of our range increased by $10 per ton compared to last week. Our average is now up $10 per ton over last week. SMU anticipates galvanized base prices will trend higher over the next 30 days however, there is an overabundance of galvanized steelmaking capacity for the construction markets so we need to watch supply and lead times carefully during the next 60 to 90 days.

Galvanized .060” G90 Benchmark: SMU Range is $830-$860 per ton with an average of $845 per ton FOB mill, east of the Rockies.

Galvanized Lead Times: 4-8 weeks.

Galvalume Coil: SMU Base Price Range is $770-$800 per ton ($38.50/cwt- $40.00/cwt) with an average of $785 per ton ($39.25/cwt) FOB mill, east of the Rockies. The lower end of our range increased by $30 per ton compared to last week while the upper end increased by $10 per ton. Our average is now $20 per ton higher compared to last week. Our expectation is for Galvalume prices to move higher over the next 30 days there is an overabundance of Galvalume steelmaking capacity for the construction markets and we have a lot of foreign steel on the floor and coming into the country so we need to watch supply and lead times carefully during the next 60 to 90 days.

Galvalume .0142” AZ50, Grade 80 Benchmark: SMU Range is $1061-$1091 per ton with an average of $1076 per ton FOB mill, east of the Rockies.

Galvalume Lead Times: 5-8 weeks.

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John Packard

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