Research

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

Change font size:   

December 2017 | North American Steels


US flat product prices establish a floor and accelerate rapidly: US Flat Product Highlights


With numerous mills undertaking planned maintenance outages late in the third quarter and early in the third quarter, US average mill capacity utilization rates fell to just 71.1% in September, their lowest level this year.

Concerted moves by US steel producers to reduce production amid declining prices, disappointing demand from OEMs and service centers, and bloated inventories throughout the distribution chain has enabled domestic steel mills to not only impose a pricing floor for flat products, but also to achieve impressive pricing gains over the past month.

With numerous mills undertaking planned maintenance outages late in the third quarter and early in the third quarter, US average mill capacity utilization rates fell to just 71.1% in September, their lowest level this year. Similarly, US crude steel output, domestic mill shipments, and US apparent steel supply in September all fell to their lowest points since February. Excessively high US service center stock levels in September, the highest level during 2017, emphasize the over-supply dilemma dampening prices during the third quarter and into October and necessitating the domestic mill production response.




While we initially believed domestic...

ACCESS RESTRICTED

You must be a paid subscriber to view the full content.
Content over 60 days old can only be accessed by subscribers.
Call +44(0)20 7779 8000 with your credit card details or subscribe online.


SUBSCRIBE


Receive unlimited access to all current and archive content going back to 2008 including downloadable pricing data and forecasts. Plus download the latest issue as soon as it’s published.

Subscribe


Already subscribed?