Nucor’s Consumer Spot Price (CSP) -the price charges for hot-rolled coils across all of its mills- was $5/nt ($6/mt) less this week, following three previous weeks of steady pricing, following lower April scrap settlements. Monthly scrap prices are now seen sideways to down for May, market insiders told SteelOrbis.
Nucor’s CSP price is posted at $930/nt ($1,025/mt), or $46.50, FOB mill, off from $935/nt ($1,031/mt), or $46.75/cwt., one week earlier. Nucor’s California Steel Industries (CSI) monitor was also down $5/nt on an FOB mill basis at $990/nt ($1,091/mt), or $49.50/cwt., following three previous weeks of price stability.
Market insiders told SteelOrbis that finished steel pricing was steady to potentially down following a late-March peak in prices which saw the weekly Nucor CSP monitor at its highest level since reporting began in April of 2024. A combination of recent lower prices for April scrap and now May scrap, with a growing hesitation by domestic mills to continue to raise posted prices may be behind lower the CSP and CSI prices and finished steel pricing in general.
Domestic mills, they said, are reluctant to continue to raise prices because higher finished steel pricing could make imported finished steel products more competitive with domestic supply, even given current 25 percent import tariffs and other combined import duties.
Today’s price decline is the first reported since prices started to rise on January 27. Since that date, values have risen by 24 percent. Prior to that, prices were stable for nearly three months at $750/nt ($827/mt) or $37.50/cwt. Insiders said high scrap prices for the first quarter had buoyed finished steel values, though April scrap finished $20-40/gt less while May scrap is now seen steady to lower.
“At this point I am hoping for sideways for May scrap, and expecting soft sideways settles, unless the tariffs are resolved,” said one East Coast scrap market insider. “I really don’t know if current pricing is the result of tariffs on scrap as much as the uncertainty facing new steel consumption and the economy in general, that’s disrupting things.”
In the domestic flat steel spot markets, the SteelOrbis weekly average for HRC rose last week by $35/nt ($39/mt) to $935/nt ($1,031/mt). HRC prices are now expected to flatten out, insiders told SteelOrbis.
Since the industry release of the Nucor CSP in April 2024, flagging finished steel demand has resulted in Nucor reducing its CSP as low as $650/nt ($717/mt), or $32.50/cwt. during the week of July 15. Since that time, Nucor’s CSP has risen nearly 43.1 percent.