Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Flat Rolled Little Change, Plate Down

Written by John Packard

August 13, 2017

Based on the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update (SMU), there were some very minor changes to hot rolled and cold rolled prices this past week, while coated products were unchanged and plate products fell.

Both Platts and SMU had hot rolled falling by $5 per ton with both indexes reporting the HRC average as being $620 per ton ($31.00/cwt).

Cold rolled prices drop on SMU from $815 to $810 per ton. Platts kept their average the same at $800 per ton.

SMU saw galvanized and Galvalume prices as flat week over week. We use .060” G90 as the benchmark items for galvanized and .0142” AZ50, Grade 80 for Galvalume.

Plate prices dropped by double digits in both the SMU and Platts indexes. There is a difference in the numbers as SMU prices are freight prepaid (delivered) to the customer and Platts is FOB Southeastern U.S. mill.

SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this week. They only produce their indices twice per month.

SMU Note: Galvanized prices include $69 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.

Plate price FOB points are different for each of the indexes:

SMU: FOB Delivered to the Customer (includes freight)
Platts: FOB Southeastern Mill (does not include freight)

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 The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.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