Last week, SteelOrbis reported that US domestic HRC prices were, on average, trending between $29.00-$30.00 cwt. ($639-$661/mt or $580-$600/nt), ex-mill for most customers.
“A lot of people are trying to gauge where the market is heading,” a source said. “If you need material fast, you’re going to pay the elevated prices. Although some people think that current pricing isn’t supportive of supply-demand fundamentals, the prevalent thinking within our company is that market prices will remain relatively firm through Q1.”
A second source disagreed.
“Customers are skeptical of the prices mills are asking for,” he said. “Demand isn’t great and if you look at what’s going on, off the East coast, with scrap, it sounds like the exporters aren’t expecting a whole lot of activity from Turkey in the short term, which could put downward pressure on US scrap prices in February. If scrap starts to come down, the mills are going to have a very hard time holding their line on [flat rolled] spot prices.”