Steel Buyers Weigh in on USS Price Increase

Earlier this week US Steel came out with a $40 per ton price increase. Since then the other mills have been eerily quiet not yet jumping on the bandwagon. It is normal for the smaller mills to wait and see if the larger mills will follow the lead. So far this week, they have not.

There has been speculation since the USS announcement that the timing of the price increase was due to the expected cold rolled trade suit rumored to being filed by the domestic steel mills yet this month. Here is an example of the dialogue that is occurring within the industry as a large service center shared their thoughts with SMU this afternoon, “The market is quiet. [I] Have not heard of any other mills talking about additional price increases. With iron ore and oil taking a hit, and with lead times depressed on HR and CR, USS is going to have a difficult time collecting any part of this latest increase…unless they know something that we don’t know (ie. additional Trade Case filings). If that’s the case, it is wise of them to make the announcements now instead of the day after the filings as that would look like they are taking advantage of the situation.”