Steel Mills
Hot Rolled and Galvanized Price Spread Stands Pat
Written by David Schollaert
February 9, 2023
The spread between hot-rolled coil (HRC) and galvanized coil base prices have been in holding pattern. The spread has been hovering around the $200 per ton ($10 per cwt) since the end of November.
Figure 1 shows both SMU’s hot rolled and galvanized prices.
SMU’s HRC price averaged $810 per ton as of Tuesday, Feb. 7, an increase from $780 per ton one week earlier and up from $695 per ton at the beginning of January.
Our latest galvanized price index averaged $1,000 per ton on Tuesday, up from $970 per ton a week earlier and up from $900 per ton in the first week of 2023.
Figure 2 details the premium of the galvanized price over hot rolled, according to SMU data.
The premium this week is $190 per ton. It’s been sideways since Jan. 24 and is little changed since Nov. 29, 2022, when the premium was $200 per ton.
We calculated the galvanized price premium over hot rolled as a percentage of hot-rolled prices, as shown in Figure 3. This is an attempt to paint a clearer comparison against historical pricing data.
The latest premium stands at 23% vs. 24% last week and 29% at the start of 2023.
By David Schollaert, david@steelmarketupdate.com
David Schollaert
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