Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Modest Declines
Written by John Packard
March 8, 2015
The pace of the drop in flat rolled steel prices slowed this past week. From our perspective, we saw hot rolled prices as down $5 per ton, cold rolled and galvanized as flat and Galvalume up $5 per ton compared to the previous week.
All of the reporting steel indexes (SMU, CRU & Platts) followed by Steel Market Update saw single digit declines in benchmark hot rolled and our average dropped below $500 per ton to $496.50 (rounded to $497).
SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this past week as they only produce prices twice per month. Since they did not report, we are showing their numbers as NA as their previous numbers are not relevant to this past week’s data.
As the decline in price adjustments slows we are seeing the spreads between the three indexes being reported this week as tightening. We now have a $9.50 spread on hot rolled ($492.50 to $502), $5 spread on cold rolled ($625-$630) and $2 spread on galvanized. There is an $11 per ton spread between CRU and Platts on plate.
FOB Points for each index:
SMU: Domestic Mill, East of the Rockies.
CRU: Midwest Mill, East of the Rockies.
SteelBenchmarker: Domestic Mill, East of the Mississippi.
Platts: Northern Indiana Domestic Mill.
Note that SteelBenchmarker produces numbers twice per month. On the weeks they produce numbers we will include them in the average. The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.

John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products Prices North America

Nucor slows HRC price climb with $5/ton increase
After eight weeks of double-digit price increases on hot-rolled (HR) coil, Nucor slowed the price rise this week with an increase of $5 per short ton.

Domestic CRC prices surge ahead of imports
The price spread between stateside-produced CR and imports reached its widest margin in over a year.

Evraz raises plate prices $160/ton
Evraz North America (NA) has followed Nucor and SSAB with a plate price increase of its own: up $160 per short ton (st). The increase was effective immediately for all new orders of carbon, high-strength low-alloy, and normalized and quenched-and-tempered plate products, as well as for hot-rolled coil, the steelmaker said in a letter to […]

Nucor lifts HR coil to $820/ton
Nucor has increased its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil for a fourth consecutive week.

Nucor pushes HR spot price to $790/ton
Nucor increased its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil to $790 per short ton (st) on Monday, Feb. 10 – a $15/st bump vs. last week. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company has raised its weekly CSP by $40/st over the past three weeks after maintaining tags at $750/st since Nov. 12, according to SMU’s […]