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Forecasts and market analysis based on price assessments from Fastmarkets MB and Fastmarkets AMM

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April 2014 | Galvanized Steel and Tinplate Market Tracker


HDG prices rise amid tightening supply, rising demand: American Market Highlights


Now that spring has finally sprung, HDG (and galvalume) demand has also begun to improve noticeably.

When US steelmakers first announced their intention to raise hot-dipped galvanized (HDG) and other flat-rolled steel prices, which had previously been slipping, by $40/short ton in mid-March, we were very skeptical that it would be able to succeed, other than establishing a much needed pricing floor at the time – a base price of about $720-$760/short ton.

By early April, however, when Nucor announced a second, $30/short ton price hike round, which was quickly followed by a number of other major mills both east and west of the Rockies, the story had changed drastically largely due to a number of unanticipated supply issues. It started with the blast furnace outage at AK Steel’s Ashland, KY, works, followed by US Steel temporarily suspending operations at its Great Lake Works in Ecorse, MI, after a collector main collapsed onto the roof of a basic oxygen process shop there late...

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