Steel Products Prices North America

ArcelorMittal Provides Base Price Guidance on Flat Rolled

January 7, 2018

On Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018, Nucor announced a $40 per ton price increase on all spot flat rolled products produced at their steel mills. Their announcement was quickly followed by similar announcements on hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steels (galvanized and Galvalume) by U.S. Steel, NLMK USA and AK Steel.

On Friday of this past week, ArcelorMittal USA came out with their announcement, which differed from those announced by Nucor and the other mills as AMUSA provided specific minimum base pricing to their customers.

In an email sent to customers, ArcelorMittal USA said, “Effective immediately, ArcelorMittal USA’s minimum prices on sheet products are as follows:

HOT ROLLED: $720/ton [$36.00/cwt]

COLD ROLLED: $900/ton [$45.00/cwt]

HOT DIPPED GALVANIZED [$45.00/cwt]”

AMUSA is a Galvalume producer, but they did not reference any specific base price minimums on that product.

Prior to the AMUSA announcement, Steel Market Update was being told that many of the domestic mills were quoting $700 per ton ($35.00/cwt) as the minimum on hot rolled.

We also learned from a couple of service centers that spot price offers out of two mills on cold rolled was $43.50/cwt ($870 per ton) and $43.00/cwt to $43.50/cwt on galvanized ($860-$870 per ton).

Steel Market Update will be watching flat rolled spot pricing very closely as we try to determine what “flexibility” is out there and where the range will settle for each product.