FEATURE: Already supply-short US sheet steel market eyes Q2 outages

摘要

Pittsburgh— US sheet buyers have been struggling to source additional supply since late last year and now face a flurry of planned near-term mill outages. Scheduled maintenance projects include a combination of blast furnace, electric arc furnace and hot strip mill capacity across 10 separate sheet facilities through the second quarter. An already supply-short market has driven prices to all-time highs. The daily Platts TSI US hot-rolled coil price was assessed at $1,300/ st on March 16, more than 20% above its previous high, reached in 2008. Now buyers face even more limited prospects for additional spot supply into the summer with the temporary supply cuts.