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    September 9, 2014

    SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Stuck in Neutral...

    Written by John Packard

    As we look at our price indices for the week of September 8th we want to take a moment to advise our galvanized customers that we are revising our .060 G90 benchmark index to account for the change in zinc coating extras. After reviewing the changes made by the domestic steel mills we have decided to use the new U.S. Steel coating extra of $3.45/cwt as it is being used by more of the spot mills like Wheeling-Nisshin, The Techs and NLMK Pennsylvania (Sharon Coatings). When doing a historical comparison remember to account for the change from $3.00/cwt to $3.45/cwt.Steel buyers are telling Steel Market Update that the integrated mills still are not caught up as production issues (or past issues) continue to have their attention. AK Steel Ashland furnace will be going down for approximately 30 days for a reline of their hearth. We also understand that Gallatin will have a ten day outage that will begin at the end of September and Severstal Columbus (SDI Columbus) has maintenance scheduled for late October/early November.

    Buyers tell us that they are still able to get their material within promised lead times and the domestic mills do not appear to be “chasing” any orders right now. We are in the Goldilocks zone – the right amount of supply handling the right amount of demand.

    John Packard

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