After the fourth US domestic rebar price increase within a span of 10 weeks was fully absorbed into the market last week, optimism for rebar’s short- and long-term prospects are almost universally optimistic. Attendees of SteelOrbis’ annual Rebar & Wire Rod Conference in Las Vegas earlier this week reported strong demand and confidence that the current high spot price levels will sustain.
“I’ve been busy as heck since the holidays,” said one attendee on the distributor side of the supply chain. “And with all the talk of infrastructure spending coming this year, I’m prepared to be busy for a while.”
However a few attendees, mostly traders, expressed hesitance about the domestic rebar uptrend, warning that if the US DOC’s preliminary margins against Turkish rebar (preliminary results are due next month) are not a “win” for US domestic rebar producers, “mills could lose their leverage and dealmaking will become rampant once again.”
Short-term prospects, however, are still mostly positive. Even if scrap prices settle into a neutral trend in February, sources say US mills “won’t have a problem” keeping prices high. For now, spot prices for US domestic rebar are still ranging from $30.75-$32.75 cwt. ($615-$655/nt or $678-$722/mt) ex-mill.