US steel mills' hot-rolled coil lead times were almost all well into January Tuesday, according to buy-side sources, as they continue to attempt to boost prices to the $600/st level. However, fresh spot activity at the higher numbers was limited.
S&P Global Platts maintained its daily HRC and cold-rolled coil prices at $560-$580/st and $780-$800/st, respectively. Both prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
A service center source said end-use customers were still not comfortable at the newest price levels following the rapid succession of four price increases.
However, the source said most mini-mills were pushing lead times through January, but some were still willing to sell at levels in between the third and fourth price hikes for January availability.
The fourth price increase of about $40/st took mills' prices to around $600/st last week.
"Everyone plays in the same boat," he added, as mills all want $600/st for HRC, but want to make sure they do not lose an order to a competitor.
The source believes first-quarter order books will remain strong for mills as buyers with lagging quarterly contracts will look to purchase towards the upper limits in volume terms of their contracts in order to get ahead of a higher reset for second-quarter prices.
A second service center source said they had bought heavily towards the end of this year and believes orders that were advanced to beat the price increases could hinder mills' efforts to continue to raise prices through Q1.
Another third service center source said the HRC market had calmed down since the last round of price increases. "All the mills are pretty much quoting that $600/st base number. I haven't seen anyone deviate," he said. Although, he also said he had not placed any new spot orders.
