Steel Mills

Nucor surprises with $65/ton price drop for HRC

May 6, 2024

Nucor started off May with a bang, dropping its weekly base spot price for hot-rolled (HR) coil by $65 per short ton (st) this week.

Nucor’s Sheet Group said on Monday that its consumer spot price (CSP) for HR coil will be $760/st, effective May 6. That represents a decline of $65/st from last week’s CSP of $825/st and a $70/st decrease since its first published CSP on April 8.

For the first time since the implementation of its new pricing mechanism for HR, Nucor also lowered the CSP for its California Steel Industries (CSI) subsidiary. CSI’s CSP for HR coil had been $890/st since early April, but this week the company lowered it by $50/st to $840/st.

The steelmaker said in a letter to customers that the drop in the CSP was because “spot order activity has been limited and not reflective of underlying demand due to a variety of competitive factors.”

The only competitive factor the letter cited was “what appears to be increasing volumes of speculative purchases of additional tons through contract mechanisms at discounted prices.”

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. Since 2007, she has held various editorial and marketing positions with steel industry publications, associations, and mills. In 2021, after a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel trade journalism, joining SMU in 2022. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.