Steel Market in May

摘要

Surcharges have come down as scrap prices have continued to fall, and customers are resisting attempts by mills to compensate by raising list prices. Nucor is openly accepting lower transaction prices, but integrated producers are asking for third quarter prices as if the sellers market will continue indefinitely. The domestic price recovery has attracted imports. The next wave, diverted from China, is regarded as shockingly cheap on the West Coast, but riskily expensive by Midwest service centres, whose fears of a price decline is still keeping them from buying forward into the third quarter. One reason for this is that minimill output is no longer constrained by lack of scrap. BF-BOF steelmakers still complain of being short of coke, but this does not seem to have prevented them from maintaining high utilisation rates.