Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Another Mixed Week as the Market Waits
Written by John Packard
April 29, 2018
Yet another mixed week as the flat rolled and plate steel markets wait for the government to decide what to do next… It’s tough to be a steel buyer when the laws of supply and demand are no longer in sync with the actual market.
Hot rolled prices were mixed although the spread between Steel Market Update, SteelBenchmarker and Platts have been tightening. One reason for the tightening is the strength of the energy markets and the limited amount of foreign imports. For HRC there seems to be a semblance of supply being squeezed which tightens prices.
The three indexes split on cold rolled. Platts and SMU saw CRC as higher while SteelBenchmarker was $50 per ton below Platts…
SteelBenchmarker does not provide hot dipped galvanized numbers, so Platts and SMU were quite close and both saw HDG as being stable last week.
Galvalume is for SMU only and we saw AZ up $10 per ton.
Plate is on allocation and certain months are not yet open. Transactions and offers may be getting picked up differently resulting in our number being higher than Platts and SteelBenchmarker.
SMU Note: Galvanized prices include $86 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 Midwest Mill (includes freight)
SteelBenchmarker: Domestic Mill, East of the Mississippi (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 The weeks where they do not produce numbers (NA = not available) we will not include their outdated numbers in the CPI average.

John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products Prices North America

ArcelorMittal Dofasco increases spot sheet prices
ArcelorMittal Dofasco is raising spot sheet prices by CA$100 per ton (US$70/ton). The Hamilton, Ontario-based flat rolled steelmaker told customers the increase is effective immediately for all new orders. It did not specify to what level this brings its base prices but noted its right to re-quote previous but unconfirmed orders. “We will continue to […]

Nucor raises HR spot price to $775/ton
Nucor increased its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil to $775 per short ton (st) on Monday, Feb. 3. The $15/st week-on-week (w/w) rise marks the first back-to-back increases in the steelmaker’s weekly CSP since last August, according to SMU’s mill price announcement calendar. Nucor’s joint-venture subsidiary California Steel Industries (CSI) is also up […]

Nucor raises HR spot price to $760/ton
Nucor increased its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil to $760 per short ton (st) on Monday, Jan. 21. The $10/st week-on-week (w/w) rise marks the first increase in the CSP since Nov. 12. According to SMU’s mill price announcement calendar, the Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker held the weekly price at $750/st for 11 […]

SMU price ranges: Slow start to the year
Steel prices ticked lower this week for four of the five products SMU tracks, according to our latest canvass of the sheet and plate markets. Following last week’s bump, our hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, and plate indices all edged lower this week by $5-15 per short ton (st) on average. Galvalume was the only […]

Nucor holds the line on published HR spot price
The steelmaker has kept its weekly consumer spot price for hot-rolled steel sheet unchanged since Nov. 12.