US plate market prices have continued their uptick this month, and although overall demand remains largely inadequate, quoting activity has picked up in recent weeks.
Since domestic plate spot transaction prices increased approximately $3.00 cwt. ($66/mt or $60/nt) in the middle of January, most current spot deals can be found for around $35.00 cwt. to $37.00 cwt. ($772/mt to $816/mt or $700/nt to $740/nt) FOB mill. Larger customers requesting significant tonnage may still be able to negotiate deals slightly below this range but, for the most part, mill discounts are becoming more difficult to obtain.
While the increasing prices are mostly associated with rising raw material costs and have less to do with actual demand conditions, some distributors report that they have been receiving more inquiries for larger orders over the past couple weeks. Most of the quotes are still not transferring onto the order books, but the increase in interest at least indicates that the US plate market is finally starting a slow recovery. Looking forward, domestic plate prices will likely remain neutral over the next month through February and perhaps into March, but may start to increase again by the beginning of the second quarter as more of the larger government jobs are expected to be released. Furthermore, domestic mills should continue to be free of any significant pressure from import offers to keep prices low.
Traders have expressed little interest in import plate offers recently, and many contest that 2010 will be a very poor year for the import plate market. There are not many legitimate import offers out there, and the ones that are will not make sense for most US buyers, especially not service centers. This is largely due to the Buy America plan that remains in effect, constituting that government projects use only steel made in the US. While government jobs only consist of a portion of projects that use steel plate, most service centers do not carry dual inventory of both domestic and import product because they do not have the capabilities or it is too inconvenient to keep both inventories separated for when they have to ship out domestic steel for a government job. Nevertheless, you may still be able to find some Malaysian plate offers to the US at about $34.50 cwt. to $35.50 cwt. ($761/mt to $783/mt or $690/nt to $710/nt) FOB West Coast and at around $32.00 cwt. to $33.00 cwt. ($705/mt to $728/mt or $640/nt to $660/nt) FOB US Gulf Coast.
License data from the US Import Administration demonstrates that total import tonnage of cut-to-length plates managed to increase in December from November at 34,792 mt and 25,009 mt (final census data) respectively. Canada, South Africa, Sweden and Germany were the top four exporters of plate to the US in December, at 10,528 mt, 4,181 mt, 4,142 mt, and 3,640 mt respectively.