US HRC: Prices drop for fourth week

US hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices dropped this week as activity slowed heading into the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Argus weekly domestic US HRC Midwest and southern assessments both fell by $55/short ton to $1,780/st, the lowest price since the beginning of July.

Sales of $1,800-1,820/st for December were reported, with offers as low as $1,740/st. Some pegged the spot market as low as $1,700/st.

Lead times in the Midwest fell to 4-5 weeks from 5-7 weeks.

The spot market remained muted as many took the Thanksgiving holiday off and buyers continued to try to work down their inventories.

Some service centers need to buy more steel in the next month as they have been staying out of the spot market and buying minimally on their contracts for some time.

Electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker Nucor on Tuesday took its 1.6mn st/yr Gallatin, Kentucky, flat-rolled mill down for its 25-day outage to integrate its 1.4mn st/yr expansion.

North American automakers broadly plan to take their seasonal holiday outages this winter after some of them tried to work through their seasonal summer outages.

HRC import prices into Houston dropped by $50/st to $1,410/st ddp.

The spread between #1 busheling scrap delivered US Midwest mills and HRC selling prices fell by 4.2pc compared to the prior week to $1,251/st. Its the lowest the spread has been since mid-July, and it is more than double compared to the $492/st from a year ago.

The Argus weekly domestic US cold-rolled coil (CRC) assessment was flat at $2,145/st while the hot-dipped galvanized (HDG) assessment fell by $14/st to $2,146/st. Pricing for value-add products have remained elevated, increasing the spread with HRC to $350/st from around $300/st in the prior week. The market generally prices the HRC to value-add spread at $200/st.

Lead times for CRC increased to 9-10 weeks from 8-9 weeks while HDG lead times increased to 10-12 weeks from 8-9 weeks.

The CME HRC Midwest futures market fell in the last week. The January futures price fell by $22/st to $1,538/st, while February pricing dropped by $30/st to $1,445/st. March pricing fell by $21/st to $1,354/st, while April pricing moved down by $15/st to $1,295/st. May futures pricing fell by $14/st to $1,270/st.

Plate

The Argus weekly domestic US plate assessment incresed by $20/st to $1,900/st delivered as a price increase from steelmaker SSAB pushed pricing higher. Lead times shrank to 6-8 weeks from 7-8 weeks.