Steel Mills

CSI Opens September; Sources Say Offers Up ~$200/ton

Written by Michael Cowden

June 24, 2021

California Steel Industries (CSI) has opened its flat rolled order book for September. The West Coast slab converter also has increased prices by approximately $200 per ton ($10/cwt), according to market participants.

“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that CSI’s September flat rolled order book is now open,” the company said in a letter to customers Thursday, June 24.

CSI

CSI did not say whether or by what amount it might have increased prices. But multiple sources said new base prices for hot-rolled coil were approximately $1,850 per ton ($92.50/cwt) – or up $200 per ton from August pricing.

The company also increased prices by approximately $200 per ton with the opening of its August order book in May. CSI’s July book, too, opened with triple-digit increases.

The sharp gains align with SMU’s pricing data.

SMU’s average hot-rolled coil price is $1,760 per ton – or $88/cwt. That’s up about 79% from $985 per ton at the beginning of the year and quadruple a 2020 low, recorded last August, of $440 per ton.

SMU publishes a price range, and the high end of our range – $1,850 per ton – is representative of recent offers by producers, including some east of the Rocky Mountains.

CSI, approximately 50 miles east of Los Angeles in Fontana, Calif., makes hot-rolled, pickled-and-oiled, cold-rolled and galvanized products as well as welded pipe.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is editor-in-chief for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He specializes in flat-rolled steel but has also reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube, and aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.

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