Mar 24, 2020
US HRC: Prices fall as uncertainty grips market
Domestic US hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices dropped this week as the spot market almost completely froze while assessing the evolving impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.
The Argus weekly domestic US HRC index fell by $24.75/st to $580/st ex-works Midwest.
Lead times fell by a week to six weeks as no mills reported booking new orders.
Market participants said they were evaluating their books and customers were looking over orders to determine what needed to be cancelled in the aftermath of the major automakers in the US announcing some form of plant closures across their North American operations in the next two to three weeks.
Ford announced today that it was delaying its planned restart of its North American operations, which were expected to go back online on 30 March.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like Magna International and Dana announced their own closures of automotive manufacturing facilities.
On market participant said an order of 400-500st had been pulled but that much was still to be determined. Many believe that decisions this week over what orders to keep and how customers react will determine next week who will close and who will remain open.
Integrated flat-rolled steelmaker ArcelorMittal announced it was closing a blast furnace each at its Indiana Harbor West mill near Chicago and its Dofasco mill in Ontario, while Gerdau closed all of its melting operations for its special steel mills, as a result of the auto shutdowns.
Tenaris and US Steel have announced idlings or curtailing of production at their tubular steel mills, which serve the US oil and gas industry hit hard by a price war being waged between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
HRC import prices into Houston stayed flat at $630/st ddp.
Plate prices stayed flat at $668/st as the market continued to be weak.
After plunging in the prior week futures prices in the CME HRC futures market continued to decline over the last week, with May prices down by $2/st to $486/st. June futures prices fell by $14/st to $474/st, while July prices dropped by $16/st to $474/st. August prices fell by $13/st to $478/st, and September futures prices fell by $8/st to $480/st. October HRC futures prices dropped by $10/st to $490/st, while November prices settled down $5/st to $495/st.
Source: Argus
