Steel Prices

Nucor aims to hold HR prices steady this week at $650/ton

Written by Michael Cowden

July 22, 2024

Nucor kept its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil unchanged at $650 per short ton (st) this week.

HR prices for CSI, the company’s sheet subsidiary in California, held steady at $720/st. Note that sheet prices on the West Coast are typically higher than those east of the Rocky Mountains.

Nucor also said that HR lead times at its mills remained between three and five weeks.

The effort to keep prices flat this week comes after Nucor dropped HR prices by $20/t last week.

Nucor introduced its weekly CSP in early April. Sheet prices broadly speaking have been falling for most of 2024.

Case in point: SMU’s HR price stood at $640/st on average when this article was filed on Monday. That’s off nearly 7% from $685/st a month ago, according to our interactive pricing tool. It’s also down nearly 40% from $1,045/st at the beginning of the year.

We will next update sheet and plate prices on Tuesday evening.

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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