Analysis of Foreign vs. Domestic Hot Rolled Coil Prices

The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between foreign hot rolled export prices and domestic hot rolled prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of foreign hot rolled coil prices. We were finding the comparison between Platts European (Ruhr) number to be much closer to the actual quotes we are seeing on HRC out of various trading companies than using the SteelBenchmarker “world export” number. We will continue to use SteelBenchmarker as a secondary number provider which will note further down in our articles about HRC price spreads.

Our new primary numbers for this exercise are from Platts, with a comparison of European prices (Ruhr) and Chinese prices. We want to make sure that our readers are aware that Chinese hot rolled is not available to the U.S. market so the Chinese spread is nothing more than an exercise of what if…