“No base price changes, just the surcharge drop this month,” a US midwestern bar distributor said.
Indeed, “base prices are holding”, a midwestern flat products distributor said.
“I’ve heard base prices are staying the same,” a trader agreed. However, a second midwestern flat products distributor said he did receive a base discount for his July orders.
“The base number is moving a little bit,” he said. Still, end-user demand has remained relatively steady, the second midwestern flat products distributor said.
“Purchasing activity from our customers is about the same,” he said. “It’s actually a pretty decent market in the grand scheme of things, aside from chrome screwing up the pricing.”
Meanwhile, the trader predicted that the major domestic stainless mills will increase base prices sometime in the next couple of months, following the signifcant drops in surcharges recently and as stainless prices overseas remain elevated in comparison. Lower raw materials prices plagued stainless steel mills across the globe in the
second quarter of this year.
“Maybe [the mills] will make a [base price] announcement in mid-July and people will start buying again. […] The year has gone well so far, and July will be the slowest month for many. But September and October will be busy months, so at the end of the day what harm is there? People will end up buying extra metal at a relatively low price, so they won’t be in a bad position,” he said.
“The [domestic] mills realise that domestic prices are lower than imports” for some items, the trader added, pointing toward Type 304 stainless cold rolled sheet as an example.
“There is very little material in the pipeline and in depot stocks, so I would be very surprised by a decrease but would not be surprised by an increase,” the frst midwestern flat products distributor said.
The second midwestern distributor expressed some doubt about an impending base price increase, but ultimately agreed it could happen.
“The mills didn’t fll their books up very quickly in July; July is full now, but they didn’t fll it up in a snap,” the second midwestern
distributor said. “But if prices are higher overseas, then an increase is almost absolute.”
Metal Bulletin sister publication AMM’s latest assessment of Type 304 cold rolled sheet dropped 11 cents to $1.11 per lb ($2,436.11 per tonne). In comparison, Metal Bulletin’s July 6 assessment of Chinese domestic grade 304 stainless cold rolled coil (2 mm) was at 13,300- 13,700 yuan ($1,956-2,015) per tonne, including value-added tax, which equates to 88.70-91.40 cents per lb; and its July 7 assessment of EU export grade 304 cold rolled sheet (2 mm, fob North European port) was at $2,191-2,290 per tonne ($0.99-1.04 per lb).
Type 304L stainless cold rolled sheet also dropped 11 cents to $1.125 per lb, and Type 316 decreased 12.5 cents to $1.44, according to AMM’s latest assessment.
In stainless coiled plate, prices for Types 304 and 304L similarly lost 11 cents to 91.5 cents and 93.5 cents, respectively. Meanwhile, Type 316 fell 12.5 cents to $1.235 per lb, as did Type 316L, which landed at the
same price.
For stainless bar, Type 303 fell 9.5 cents to $1.22 per lb, Type 304 dipped 11 cents to $1.18 and Type 316 dropped 13 cents to $1.65 per lb. Type 416 and Type 17Cr4Ni stainless bar both slipped 7 cents to $1.04
per lb and $1.96 per lb, respectively.
Source: Metal bulletin
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