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    Overseas

    May 2, 2017

    Analysis of Foreign vs. Domestic Hot Rolled Coil Prices

    Written by Brett Linton

    In normal markets it is fairly easy to determine where foreign price offers “should” be based on the indexes of export prices in Asia, Europe, Middle East and elsewhere. SMU wants to begin tonight’s article to warn our readers that we are not in a “normal” market due to antidumping suits and now the Section 232 self-initiated review of imports based on “national security” concerns.

    The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the theoretical spread between foreign hot rolled steel export prices and domestic (USA) hot rolled coil 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 (as well as other Platts foreign export numbers) 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 did previously. We will continue to use SteelBenchmarker as a secondary number provider which we will note further down in this article.

    Brett Linton

    Brett Linton is a digital operations analyst for Steel Market Update, where he began his career. Linton has been in the steel industry since 2010. He has held roles as a category manager and strategic insights director at Reibus before returning to SMU in 2024. He is a graduate of The University of North Georgia with a degree in Finance and Accounting. Brett can be reached at brett@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-314-0179.

    Read more from Brett Linton

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