We return to the subject of differentials between the main coil products in a single market. The gyrations of prices over the past few years have played havoc with these. There used to be a consistent relationship, at least in the US market. CR coil cost 100 dollars/s.ton more than HR coil and HDG cost another 100 dollars/s.ton. There were differences over the course of the steel price cycle, but some consistency throughout. The two charts compare the USA with the EU over the past three-and-a-half years. The show differences between the markets and they show that stable relationships are rare, whatever the may have been in the past. There was a spectacular fall in the US differential between CR coil and HDG, taking it down more closely to the differences seen in the EU. It stayed low over the period that followed, when it disappeared on more than a few occasions in the EU.
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