US producers of flat products were forced to admit that local buyers being afraid of a roll back in prices were not ready to accept the new price levels announced in mid-April. Therefore, suppliers had to reduce the planned increase by $20-43/t for HRC and by $10-30/t for CRC over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, HDG segment has seen no changes yet amid rather high demand and limited supply. Nevertheless, domestic producers do not give up and stick with the policy of stepwise increase despite expected weakening in scrap prices in the first half of May.
The current mills’ domestic prices for HRC vary in the range of $772-794/t exw ($700-720/short ton), and those for CRC and HDG – $882-904/t exw ($800-820/short ton) and $945-950/t exw ($857-862/short ton) respectively.