Earlier this week, six US domestic mills filed trade case petitions against Australian, Brazilian, Japanese, South Korean, Turkish, UK and Netherlands mills, citing cheap imported hot rolled coil (HRC) from these countries is causing injury to the domestic market. Although many have cited a belief that US domestic mills would be quick to roll out price increase announcements, as futures bookings from these countries would quickly fall silent, others say that lead times are still too short and are, in most cases, less than three weeks.
As such, prices within the US domestic spot market are still relatively soft, at $22.00-$24.00 cwt. ($507-$529/mt or $460-$480/nt), ex-Midwest mill. Sources close to SteelOrbis feel there is still quite a bit of inventory that needs to be worked through before any price increase attempt would be accepted.