There’s been some decent activity within the US domestic hollow structural sections (HSS) tubing market in the past several weeks, as sources in the southern part of the US have reported that fabrication jobs are starting to pick up. Order activity has definitely increased, according to one Midwest-based service center source, and things seem to be fairly steady at the moment. Other sources close to SteelOrbis say they’ve started to hear rumblings that US domestic mills may soon try to run a price increase up the proverbial flag pole. “Mills are saying their margins are being squeezed tighter than they have in years due to raw materials costs,” he said, but whether it would actually stick is a whole other question.
However, US domestic scrap prices trended sideways this month, and the current speculation is that market could soften a bit for October buys. Hot rolled coil (HRC) costs are also steady, but hardly rising, which has many HSS buyers wondering where the mill-margin-squeezing is coming from. For now, the most commonly reported spot price transaction range continues to hold at approximately $47.00-$48.00 cwt. ($1,036-$1,058/mt or $940-$960/nt) ex-Midwest mill. In terms of futures offers, those too have held sideways since our last report two weeks ago, with offers from Korea coming in at approximately $37.50-$38.50 cwt. ($827-$849/mt or $750-$770/nt) DDP loaded truck US Gulf coast ports, while offers from Turkish continue to trend about $2.50 cwt. ($55/mt or $50/nt) higher.