Welded Tube of Canada today announced they’d be raising prices on HSS tubing by $8 cwt. ($176/mt or $160/nt), and sources close to SteelOrbis believe that it’s just a matter of time before US tube mills announce increases of their own. Once the increase is accepted by the market, US HSS prices will rise to a staggering $107-$108 cwt. ($2,359-$2,381/mt or $2,140-$2,160/nt), FOB mill, although as of today, prices remain in the range of $99-$100/cwt. ($2,183-$2,205/mt or $1,980-$2,000/nt), FOB mill.
Yet despite record-high prices, some service centers have said they’ve made strides in building inventory.
“We did some inventory building recently and bought four months of material instead of two,” a source said. “There’s no short-term end to this in sight. We’ve also seen demand slowdown because some of the big fab jobs are delaying their projects based on where prices are. We definitely think it’s going to slow down even more in light of this increase.”
In a poll conducted earlier this week at SteelOrbis’ annual RWR conference, most respondents said they believe that domestic prices will stay strong until 2022, rather than dropping in Q3 or Q4 of this year.