US steelmaker Nucor raised its hot-rolled coil (HRC) price for the eighth-straight week today against a backdrop of slowing spot activity.
Nucor raised its US HRC price to $10/st to $940/st for its customer base, save for its California Steel Industries HRC price, which rose by $10/st to $990/st.
Lead times were consistent from previous announcements at three to five weeks.
Nucor's push for higher prices surprised some buyers in recent weeks because demand was weak, in part driven by the seasonably slow US holiday season.
US HRC transactions totaled 2,528st across 11 transactions for the week of 1-5 December, according to Argus. The tonnage rebounded slightly from the 2,278st reported during the prior assessment, but was not even half of the tonnage just two weeks before. Transactions for the first week of December were also at one of the lowest marks on record, and less than half the transactions received two weeks previous.
The trends show ordering patterns consolidated to just a handful of participants, as more buyers stick to contract tons for the remainder of the year.
The pullback in buyer appetite led some service centers to believe higher prices would not stick, but mills have been equally responsible for the drop in transactions. Some major producers turned prospective buyers away because of tight supply and thin inventories in the kind of market environment some mills believe supports price increases.
