Prices for cold-rolled and galvanized strengthened in the United States after more steel mills succeeded in extending lead times and hot-rolled coil prices gained ground in August.
*** price assessment for steel cold-rolled coil and hot-dipped galvanized
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel cold-rolled coil, fob mill US was at $32 per hundredweight ($640 per short ton) on Thursday August 13, up by 3.2% from this year’s low of $31 per cwt on August 6.
Similarly, Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel hot-dipped galvanized (base) sheet steel coil, fob mill US rose to $۳۲ per cwt from $31 per cwt in the same comparison.
While integrated mills’ attempts to increase sheet prices by $۴۰ per ton ($2 per cwt) on July 21-22 initially failed, mill sources said one mini-mill has seen lead times push out enough to firm up its prices and a second mini-mill is ready to support that.
*** steel producers
Those electric-arc furnace (EAF) steel producers could either announce a formal price increase of their own or simply quote higher without issuing a letter, some customers said.
Lead times were at approximately four to seven weeks for cold-rolled product and mostly five to eight weeks for coated material, according to market participants and mill lead-time sheets.
One mill source said demand from the automotive and construction sectors was providing support for higher cold-rolled and galvanized sheet steel prices. Other market participants said any extended lead times were more a consequence of a slower pace of production at some mills – resulting from idlings, outages, layoffs, accidents and factors related to summer vacations.
*** Covid-19 pandemic
The uneven nature of the manufacturing ramp-up during the Covid-19 pandemic has continued to exert financial pressure on customers. Concern about further economic contraction in the fourth quarter also remains, with some distributors noting ongoing discounting of inventory to raise cash.
“Automotive is up compared to what it was,” a northeastern distributor source said, but elsewhere “everything is just very, very slow. People are still not fully back to work. Some of the jobs that were in the works before the Covid-ness still have not come through.”
The increase in the price for value-added material corresponded with higher HRC pricing. Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $23.31 per cwt on Thursday, up by $1.18 per cwt from $22.13 per cwt on the first business day in August and the highest level recorded since July 16, when the index was at $23.41 per cwt.
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