Supply remains relatively tight in the US sheet market, apparently slowing seasonal erosion, market sources said Thursday.
A service center executive said that flat-rolled lead times, particularly cold-rolled lead times, were healthy due to a balance between available supply and demand. He further said he was able to recently sell spot tons at a "good price" because the buyer "didn't have a choice."
A second service center executive said he believes that the current tightness in the supply chain is likely to continue through H2. Platts has confirmed upcoming outages from Severstal, Steel Dynamics Inc and ArcelorMittal, with outages expected from Nucor, US Steel and Gallatin Steel.
"They're not going to take maintenance outages if they're really busy," he said. "(But) I would assume if there's a pick up in demand they'd push them back or speed them up."
Platts maintained its hot-rolled assessment Thursday at $650-660/st and its cold-rolled assessment at $755-765/st. All prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
