Steel Products Prices North America

Vietnamese Exports of Cold Rolled & Coated to USA: An Exercise…
Written by John Packard
June 21, 2018
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Department of Commerce releases the import licenses collected by product and by country through that date. This week, the licenses were reported for the first 19 days of June 2018.
After looking at the data (see story about June import trend in tonight’s issue of SMU), the head of commercial for a domestic steel mill texted SMU, “BTW, did u see Vietnam coated licenses? Giant levels. Amazing.”
So, Brett Linton in our office did some research on what the cold rolled and coated (galvanized and other metallic, most of which is Galvalume) imports the U.S. has been receiving and is projected to receive during the month of June (and for the first five months 2018). To make it interesting, we had him take a look at what impact a quota, similar to South Korea’s, would have on Vietnam’s numbers.
As you can see, we are showing the trend for the month of June to be 31,000 net tons of cold rolled, 103,000 net tons of galvanized and 15,000 net tons of Galvalume.
If Vietnam was to be forced to accept a quota (which we believe is what President Trump wants), their quota would already be exhausted on galvanized and Galvalume steels.

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

Thin demand keeps plate prices hovering at lowest levels since February
Participants in the domestic plate market say spot prices appear to have hit the floor, and they continue to linger there. They say demand for steel remains thin, with plate products no exception.

SMU Price Ranges: HR crawls back to $800/ton
SMU’s HR price stands at $800/st on average, up $5/st from last week. The modest gain came as the low end of our range firmed, and despite the high end of our range declining slightly.

SMU successfully completes IOSCO review
SMU has successfully completed an external review of all our prices. The review has concluded that they algin with principles set by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Domestic plate prices could heat up despite so-so demand, market sources say
Some sources also speculated that plate could see further price increases thanks to modest but steady demand, lower imports, mill maintenance outages, and end markets less immediately affected by tariff-related disruptions.

SMU Price Ranges: HR holds, galv slips amid competing market narratives
SMU’s sheet and plate prices see-sawed this week as hot-rolled (HR) coil prices held their ground while prices for galvanized product slipped.