This morning RG Steel began informing their customers of a “transactional price increase announcement” effective immediately on all new flat rolled steel orders. The price increase is much like the NLMK USA announcement made on Thursday of last week. Both announcements were for $50 per ton ($2.50/cwt).

The memo, which was under the signature of David A. Howard, Chief Commercial Officer for RG Steel, was dated November 4, 2011 and contained the following information:

“Effective immediately with new orders received, RG Steel, LLC is increasing non-contract transaction prices on all flat rolled products by a minimum of $50/NT ($2.50/cwt). In addition, all outstanding unconfirmed quotations are withdrawn.

Despite consistent demand for our products, a slowly improving economy, reductions in flat-rolled imports, and very lean supply chains, we have experienced significant erosion in selling prices and margins. This increase is a necessary first step towards restoring a more normalized cost/price relationship for our products.

We will continue to monitor developments in the marketplace closely and will take further action as events warrant.”

The RG Steel announcement marks the third domestic mill to announce price increases since Severstal began the move higher with their base specific announcement of last Wednesday.

Steel Market Update will continue to monitor the domestic mill announcements carefully and report to our members in our newsletter on Tuesday evening what we are seeing both in the area of announcements but also where transactions are actually occurring on flat rolled steel at this time.