Final Thoughts

There could be a further divergence between hot rolled base pricing and that of coated steels. With the combination of the corrosion resistant “final determination” ruling by the US Department of Commerce and the reduction of hot rolled price offers from offshore into the United States, well, things are a little out of whack. In normal times we tend to see a $100 to $120 per ton spread between hot rolled base pricing and that of cold rolled and coated steels. In other words if hot rolled is selling for $630 per ton (SMU average for this week) you would expect CR and coated to be $730 to $750 per ton (base + extras). That is not the case right now as CR and coated price offers are well above $800 per ton.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I spoke with a Turkish trading company who reported prices are dropping based on the latest hot rolled offers for imports into the United States (July shipment). June tons (shipment) were sold up to $29.50/cwt CIF, Duty Paid, USA Port ($590 per ton). Offers right now are at $28.00/cwt-$28.25/cwt ($560-$570 per ton) and seeing resistance from buyers. Other traders reported similar findings of HRC price offers as being lower by $20 to $30 per ton since the last deals were made.