Steel Products Prices North America
Service Center Spot Prices Weakening
Written by John Packard
May 9, 2017
Last week Steel Market Update completed our early May flat rolled steel market trends analysis. During the process, we asked manufacturing companies and service centers to comment on the status of the service center spot market pricing. We found agreement within both camps that steel distributors have been transitioning from a market where they were asking for higher prices to a more balanced spot price environment.
Manufacturers reported only 19 percent of flat rolled distributors were lowering prices, 10 percent raising prices and the vast majority (71 percent) were keeping prices stable (see graphic below).
We asked the service centers a similar question, and we found 29 percent of the distributors responding to our query reporting their company as lowering spot prices. Another 18 percent reported their company as raising prices and 53 percent saw stability in their spot price offers to their customer.
If you look at our graph below you will see these response levels are radically different than what we were reporting back in mid-March 2017 when 78 percent of the service centers responding to our survey reported their company as raising spot pricing (see graphic below).
Separate from the survey, SMU received a comment from a service center executive this afternoon (Tuesday, May 9, 2017) questioning why service centers were dropping spot prices below their cost to replace… “Considering mills are attempting to maintain pricing structure it is amazing how quickly Service Centers are dropping prices below current replacement costs.”
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products Prices North America
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 […]
ArcelorMittal Dofasco increases spot sheet prices
ArcelorMittal Dofasco is raising spot sheet prices by CA$100 per ton (US$70/ton). The Hamilton, Ontario-based flat rolled steelmaker told customers the increase is effective immediately for all new orders. It did not specify to what level this brings its base prices but noted its right to re-quote previous but unconfirmed orders. “We will continue to […]
Nucor raises HR spot price to $775/ton
Nucor increased its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil to $775 per short ton (st) on Monday, Feb. 3. The $15/st week-on-week (w/w) rise marks the first back-to-back increases in the steelmaker’s weekly CSP since last August, according to SMU’s mill price announcement calendar. Nucor’s joint-venture subsidiary California Steel Industries (CSI) is also up […]