The US sheet market remained shrouded in uncertainty as further capacity cuts were anticipated and lower prices were heard on Wednesday.
Platts maintained its daily hot-rolled and cold-rolled coil price assessments at $400-420/st and $530-$550/st, respectively. However, some buy-side sources noted pricing was becoming more widely available below current assessments. All prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
A buyer said he had been seeing HRC pricing at $380/st from a southern mill for some time and it was becoming more available from competing mills. He did note that he had not purchased material recently in the Midwest region.
He believed that current deflationary pressures from raw material costs and high inventories would contribute to renewed pressure on flat-rolled prices. The buyer said the recent announcements from AK Steel and US Steel regarding temporary reductions of blast furnace capacity would not have any impact until December as production winds down.
In the meantime, he expected October shipment and inventories levels at service centers to show little improvement over September's recently published Metals Service Center Institute's data.
A service center source said market participants continued to ask a lot of questions about capacity. There was talk at a recent industry event surrounding what ArcelorMittal had planned for its Indiana Harbor West location.
The discussion about Indiana Harbor West has been gestating in the market throughout the year, with the steelmaker denying an industry analyst report in July that it planned to rationalize a portion of its operations at that location.
However, the service center source said no one knows what is going on as those questions linger, as well as uncertainty remaining with the ongoing labor negotiations.
ArcelorMittal could not be reached for immediate comment.
The service center source did note that HRC pricing was falling below the $400/st level. Quotes out of an integrated mill were starting to begin at $410/st, while mini-mills were more competitive. He said several mills had $380/st HRC pricing available but for orders sizes slightly outside the maximum lot size of 500 st considered in the Platts daily assessment.
A second service center noted that cold-rolled substrate pricing for hot-dipped galvanized sheet was around $520/st for more general orders and $510/st from larger tonnage. However, he didn't think mills were conducting much business at those numbers.
