Overseas
October 13, 2016
Spread Between Foreign & Domestic HR Prices Shrinks
Written by Brett Linton
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of foreign hot rolled coil prices. We were finding the comparison between Platts European (Ruhr) number to be much closer to the actual quotes we are seeing on HRC out of various steel trading companies than using the SteelBenchmarker “world export” number. We will continue to use SteelBenchmarker as a secondary number provider which we will note further down in our articles about HRC price spreads.
Our new primary numbers for this exercise are from Platts, with a comparison of European hot rolled prices (Ruhr) and Chinese prices. In today’s analysis we are also providing an example of Turkish HR export prices (Platts) and the spread between Turkish prices and domestic (USA) pricing.
