The “official” spot market price transaction range for US domestic cold rolled coil (CRC) continues to hold in the range of $35-$36 cwt. ($772-$794/mt or $700-$720/nt), ex-mill, although sources believe that additional softening is likely.
“If you look at the spread between hot rolled and cold rolled, well, it’s too much,” a source said. “We definitely think that cold rolled is going to tick down a few more notches before the slide is over.”
Other sources agree, noting that the US market still “has too much steel and too much capacity compared to demand.”
“Yes, there are outages this month, but it’s our position that the outages won’t make a blip of difference,” another source added. “We believe there’s still plenty of mill sock on the floor and that even with the lost capacity this month, the market won’t notice.”