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

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October 2017 | North American Steels


Prices fall despite lower imports and domestic production: US Flat Product Highlights


An increase in import prices can be explained by the strength of domestic markets of major HRC exporters into the USA.

Domestic US prices declined for all flat steel products in September, with a fall averaging at $30/ton. HRC prices peaked at $631/ton on September 8th, and after that the price was shedding about $10/ton a week, closing the month at $598.8/ton. This happened despite the fact that import offers slightly increased in September, with some asking prices set as high as $620/ton.

An increase in import prices can be explained by the strength of domestic markets of major HRC exporters into the USA. For example, Japan, which was the second largest exporter of HRC after Canada in September according to the licence data, saw its export prices jumping by about $66/ton on the FOB basis during the month.




Domestic US mills, however, were forced to drop their offer prices in order to entice buying. Anecdotally, there is still a lot of material available...

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