When it comes to cold rolled coil futures offers to the US, Chinese mills seem to have taken a “throwing their hands up in the air” approach to their pricing. “Since the price difference between Chinese and domestic offers is so big, the mills figure they may as well sell what they can while they still can.” according to one trader source.
As it stands, Chinese pricing is still $3.00 cwt. ($66/mt or $60/nt) below what’s being offered from India and $6.00 cwt. ($132/mt or $120/nt) below domestics.
Meanwhile, players within the US domestic market say that prices have held sideways for the past seven days, at $38.00-$39.50 cwt. ($838-$871/mt or $760-$790/nt) ex-Midwest mill. And although many believed there may be a bit of a slowdown for the month of June “order activity has remained steady and demand is hanging tough.”
| Cwt. | Metric Ton (mt) | Net ton (nt) | Change from last week | |
| US domestic | ||||
| Ex-Midwest mill | ||||
| CRC | $38.00-$39.50 | $838-$871 | $760-$790 | neutral |
| China* | ||||
| CRC | $31.00-$32.00 | $684-$706 | $620-$640 | neutral |
| India* | ||||
| CRC | $34.00-$35.00 | $750-$771 | $680-$700 | neutral |
| *DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports | ||||