US steel coil prices fell slightly Thursday, with buyers saying some mills are becoming increasingly hungry and willing to cut deals.
One top-tier mill source said the bulk of his hot-rolled transactions were being done between $670-680/st, while another top-tier mill source said hot-rolled deals had recently been done from $660-695/st. The same source said a cold-rolled deal had been done for $805/st, and he remarked that most CRC quotes are now around $800/st.
Earlier in the week, a third-top tier mill source said both HRC and CRC pricing was largely stable, though at least some deals were being done near the list prices of $700/st and $830/st, respectively.
Additionally, Platts heard one unconfirmed cold-rolled offer at $770/st. As an unconfirmed outlier, it was not taken into consideration in Thursday's CRC assessment.
One buyer described both CRC and hot-dipped galvanized pricing as "pretty firm" and said $680/st was the prevailing price for HRC. HRC deals below $680/st could be done, he said, but purchasing managers making such buys within Platts' volume specification of up to 500 st were "doing a really good job."
Overall, he said, absent any large influx of imports or unexpected dips in scrap, the market should fall about $10-20/st and then remain rangebound.
"Everyone's waiting for the shoe to drop one way or the other, and it'd be fine for me if nothing dropped at all," he said.
Platts lowered its HRC assessment from $675-685/st to $670-680/st and its CRC assessment from $810-820/st to $800-810/st. All prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
