Steel Products Prices North America

Spread Between Domestic & World HRC Pricing Shrinks

Written by Brett Linton

February 27, 2014

A few weeks back Steel Market Update published an article on World Export Price vs. Domestic HRC Pricing. Here is an update with a comparison of current prices.

The latest SMU HR price was at $635 per net ton (NT) average, and using the world export price as reported by SteelBenchmarker plus $70 per ton in freight, we can calculate the true world export price to the customer at $578 per NT. This puts the spread around $47 per ton, much less than the $75 per ton reported in early February when domestic was $655 compared to $580 world export price delivered to US ports (depending on freight the spread could be slightly higher).

At $47 to $60 per ton the spread is no longer attractive to most domestic buyers unless there is a port freight advantage vs. domestic mill.

The spread between the domestic and world export price with freight peaked at $93 per NT on November 26th, 2013. Since our last article, the spread has fallen from $75 to $57 per NT.

Brett Linton

Brett Linton is a senior analyst for Steel Market Update, where he began his career. Linton has been in the steel industry since 2010. He has held roles as a category manager and strategic insights director at Reibus before returning to SMU in 2024. He is a graduate of The University of North Georgia with a degree in Finance and Accounting. Brett can be reached at brett@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-314-0179.

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