Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Prices Jump

Written by John Packard

March 13, 2016

Prices jumped this past week on both SMU and Platts indexes (SteelBenchmarker did not report prices last week). These increases come on the heels of the most recent price announcements made a couple of weeks ago.

Benchmark hot rolled continues to be the weakest of the flat rolled products and we are seeing some separation between our index and Platts on HRC. SMU HRC index average increased by $5 per ton as we collected HRC numbers hovering around $400 per ton with some of the larger players. Platts took their hot rolled average to $430 per ton a jump of $23 per ton over what they published the prior week.

Cold rolled also got a boost from both SMU and Platts. We took our CRC average up $25 per ton to $590 per ton while Platts took their CRC number up $20 per ton to $590 as well.

Our galvanized .060” G90 number increased by $10 per ton to $645 per ton while Galvalume rose $15 per ton on .0142” AZ50, Grade 80.

Platts held plate prices at $480 per ton which is where plate has rested for a number of weeks.

FOB Points for each index:

SMU: Domestic 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 The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.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

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