Has the US domestic CRC market reached bottom?

Last week, US domestic flat rolled steel producers announced a $2.00 cwt. ($44/mt or $40/nt) price increase effective immediately on new orders.  Mills said this was due to two things. One, raw materials costs seem to have stabilized and two, lead times had started to lengthen.  The announcement, however, has done nothing to firm US domestic cold rolled coil (CRC) spot prices, which continue to trend at approximately $23.00-$24.00 cwt. ($507-$529/mt or $460-$480/nt), ex-Midwest mill, which reflects no change since our last report a week ago.

SteelOrbis sources, however, did say that the announcements have helped prevent further price erosion, but it is not expected that the early December price increase will help firm current spot market prices.  “The announcement was more about setting a bottom than actually getting prices up,” one source said. 

In terms of imports, it should also be noted that the US Department of Commerce today released the preliminary findings in the countervailing duty case against certain cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India and Russia; no countervailable subsidization of imports were found against imports of certain cold-rolled steel flat products from Korea.

Brazilian mills received a preliminary subsidy rate of 7. 42 percent; named Chinese mills received a preliminary subsidy rate of 227.29 percent; named Indian mills received a preliminary subsidy rate of 4.45 percent.

In the Russia investigation,Commerce preliminarily determined that mandatory respondents Novolipetsk Steel OJSC (NLMK), Novex Trading, Altai-Koks OJSC, Dolomite OJSC, StoilenskyOJSC, Studenovskaya (Stagdok) OJSC, Trading House LLC, Vtorchermet NLMK LLC, Vtorchermet OJSC, and Vtorchermet NLMK Center LLC (collectively, the NLMK Companies) received a subsidy rate of 6.33 percent and PAO Severstal, Severstal Export GmbH, JSC Karelsky Okatysh, AOOLKON, AO Vorkutaugol, and JSC Vtorchermet (collectively, the Severstal Companies) received a subsidy rate of 0.01 percent, which is de minimis.

In the Korea investigation, Commerce preliminarily determined that mandatory respondents Hyundai Steel Co., Ltd. received a subsidy rate of 0.61 percent and POSCO/Daewoo International Corporation received a subsidy rate of 0.18 percent, which are both de minimis which results in a negative countervailing duty determination.

It is not believed that today’s announcement will have any immediate impact on futures bookings from these countries.