Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Price Averages Moving Lower

September 23, 2017

Flat rolled steel prices have begun to uniformly move lower based on what we have been collecting for steel price averages from ours and other steel indexes. Both Platts and Steel Market Update (SMU) had benchmark hot rolled as moving lower by $10 per ton this past week. Cold rolled prices were $10 lower on our steel index, while Platts remained the same. SMU also saw galvanized and Galvalume prices as $10 and $5 per ton lower, respectively. SMU also saw a large drop in steel plate prices last week.

Benchmark hot rolled is closing in on $600 per ton, with SMU now at $615 per ton and Platts at $620 per ton. The lower end of the SMU range is below $600 per ton.

Cold rolled is close to breaking through $800 per ton, with SMU CRC averaging $800 while Platts is $5 per ton higher at $805 per ton.

Galvanized .060″ G90 dropped $10 per ton (note: SMU continues to use $78 per ton in extras and has not increased our extras to reflect the new NLMK extras).

Galvalume .0142″ AZ50 Grade 80 dropped $5 per ton to $1,096 per ton.

Plate prices now average less than $700 per ton, with our index adjusting $30 per ton to $690 per ton delivered to the customer.

SMU Note: Galvanized prices include $78 in extras for a .060″ G90 product. Galvalume prices include $291 in extras for a .0142” AZ50 Grade 80 product.

FOB points for each index:

SMU: Domestic Mill, East of the Rockies.
SteelBenchmarker: Domestic Mill, East of the Mississippi.
Platts: Northern Indiana Domestic Mill.

Plate price FOB points are different for each of the indexes:

SMU: FOB Delivered to the Customer (includes freight)
Platts: FOB Southeaster Mill (does not include freight)

Note that SteelBenchmarker produces numbers twice per month. On the weeks they produce numbers, we will include them in the average. The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.