Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Another Week of Slipping Price Averages

Written by John Packard

May 21, 2017

Flat rolled steel prices continued to slip lower this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update.

Benchmark hot rolled prices slipped $5 per ton on both Platts and our own index. SteelBenchmarker did not report prices as they only produce prices twice per week. The hot rolled average is quickly approaching the key $600 per ton level and Steel Market Update is expecting HRC prices to continue to erode in the coming weeks thus breaking the psychological $600 barrier.

Cold rolled prices also dropped last week with both Steel Market Update (SMU) and Platts taking their averages down $10 per ton.

Galvanized price average held its own while the Galvalume average was seen down $5 per ton.

SMU saw plate prices as being down $10 per ton while Platts kept plate steady at $730 per ton (FOB SE Mill). Our readers need to understand there is a major difference between SMU and Platts plate pricing as our number is referencing a delivered average price, not FOB Mill.

SMU Note: Galvanized prices include $78 in extras for a .060″ G90 product. Galvalume prices include $291 in extras for a .0142” AZ50 Grade 80 product.

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 The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.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