Steelmaker Nucor’s Consumer Spot Price (CSP) -the price it charges for hot-rolled coils across all of its mills- increased 3.84 percent on rising raw materials costs and increased order activity, the steelmaker said today in a letter to its customers.
Today’s CSP price increase to $675/st ($744/mt) FOB mill, represents the first price rise announced since the steelmaker increased its CSP by $10/st ($10/mt) on May 20, even as US domestic scrap prices were in free fall.
The California Steel Industries (CSI) index also increased $25/st ($28/mt) to $745/st FOB mill ($821/mt), the steelmakers said.
“While a surge in dumped and subsidized flat rolled imports during the first half of 2024 has affected our pricing, we are currently experiencing higher raw material prices and have recently seen increased order entries reflecting our customers’ resilient underlying demand,” the steelmaker said.
Steel market insiders told SteelOrbis during the week of July 22, that they expected a price increase announcement from mills over the next 2 weeks, mostly because of expectations for higher scrap prices in August.
They said August scrap was likely to settle sideways to up $20/gt ($22/mt) across all grades on a delivered to mill basis because scrap inventories in the US Midwest and Northeast were reportedly off between 20-50 percent as collections slumped amid low price offers from peddlers and hot weather, which reduced scrap gathering activity, they said. Lower manufacturing activity during the first two quarters of 2024 is cited as also reducing the production of prime grade scrap, they said.
In the flat steel spot market, for the week ended July 26, SteelOrbis data shows domestic HRC prices were flat at $32.50-$33.00/cwt. ($717-728/mt or $650-660/nt) on a delivered to customer basis. Market insiders said flat steel prices were approaching a “price bottom” after falling nearly 22 percent since early April as demand for finished steel slumped.