Steel Buyers Basics: Coating Costs

The following article was written by Mario Briccetti, one of our Steel 101 workshop instructors and the director of the consulting firm: Briccetti & Associates. Mario has written other articles about the costs associated with coating galvanized and Galvalume steels. Those articles can be found in our website in the “Steel Buyers Basics” section of the website. Mario’s contact information is at the end of this article.

Last week at least two domestic steel mills increased their galvanized coating extras. Without a doubt the other mills will follow over the coming days. The reason for these increases is clear, it is due to the continued increase in the cost of zinc (galvanized coating is almost 100% zinc).  Last year I created a spreadsheet program to calculate the impact of zinc and aluminum costs on coating costs and in this article I am going to quantify the impact of rising zinc costs on the production cost of galvanized steel.