Steel Products Prices North America

Plate Price Momentum Adjusted to Higher

December 12, 2019

The domestic plate steel mills have made three price increase announcements totaling $130 per ton ($6.50/cwt). The lead times out of the plate mills have moved into February. Scrap has been moving higher and is expected to move higher over the winter months.

The mills are beginning to see some traction in plate pricing. Steel Market Update is adjusting our plate momentum indicator to “Higher” from Nuetral. We have been at Neutral since the first price increase announcements were made on Oct. 28. (Evraz) and Nov. 7 (Nucor).

arrow up SMU’s expectation is for plate prices to move higher over the next 30 to 60 days.

We spoke with plate steel buyers who agree plate prices are beginning to move higher. One of them had an interesting way of expressing how his company was seeing the plate markets:

“With $130/t ($6.50/cwt) announced they want to collect the $80/t ($4.00/cwt) first. I’m told that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Nucor-SSAB-Mittal have all moved lead-times out to February as of tomorrow. With scrap up and projected up again in January, they all fully expect to collect most if not all of the announced increases by January.” This buyer then went on to say, “DEMAND (or lack thereof) is the leading driver of collecting these increases. Buyers aren’t buying now.”

SMU’s understanding is that buyers sitting on their hands at the end of the calendar year is typical. Especially when you have service centers willing to unload inventories using pre-price-increase costs. Over time these will change, provided there is true demand to support the increases.