US electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker and reroller NLMK USA has increased its hot rolled coil (HRC) price to $1,200/short ton (st).
The move is a $200/st price increase over the previous level, while its cold rolled coil (CRC) and hot dipped galvanized (HDG) coil prices are in a range of $1,300-1,400/st, according to multiple sources.
The HRC price level would be $100/st above the HRC minimum set by integrated steelmaking competitor Cleveland-Cliffs on 27 February and $200/st above where EAF competitor Nucor last set its price minimum on 21 February.
NLMK USA has limited spot tons available as it prepares for a 40-day melt shop outage beginning on 9 April at its 770,000st/yr Portage, Indiana electric arc furnace (EAF). While the company is producing slabs to allow production to continue during the outage it is unclear how many it will have available.
NLMK USA also has a 2mn st/yr re-rolling facility in Farrell, Pennsylvania, that relies heavily on slabs, including imports. Slab prices have been reported at $800/metric tonne (t) fob sold into the US, indicating that NLMK is likely having to pay elevated raw materials prices that push up its conversion costs.
