Spot offers in the US steel sheet market were being pushed higher on Monday, sources noted, as service centers saw mixed January activity.
A service center source said the market was a little quiet, unless you were to ask the mills. January started strong, he said, but activity began to slow down through the remainder of the month. This could be because "mills are trying to draw a line again and this is scaring buyers to transact both from them and from distributors," he added.
Overall, he said, lower lagging contract pricing was putting spot buyers at a disadvantage, as spot hot-rolled coil was around $420/st, with some mills even asking for $440/st. Some contracts through January were still below $400/st, which he said was "a very large spread if the contract buyers are quoting new business based upon their discount rather than spot replacement."
A second service center source said the market was "pretty quiet," but their "spot [sales] business was surprisingly strong last week."
Platts maintained its daily HRC and cold-rolled coil assessments at $400-$420/st and $540-$550/st, respectively. Both prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
Transaction prices for HRC and cold-rolled and galvanized material were in some cases significantly higher than the current Platts assessments, according to a mill source. "Depending on who is buying what, base prices on cold rolled and galvanized can be agreed to at up to $600 per ton," he said, as "it all depends on the product, lead time, etc." In addition, he said HRC can also be sold for more than $420/st.
