Hot-rolled band prices still soaring

In the past two weeks, our contacts indicate that the Tier I mills’ export price for hot-rolled band (HRB), FOB the port of export, has risen to about $600 per metric tonne versus about $575 per tonne in early May and the January 2006 low of about $400-420 per tonne. One contact reports that the current Egyptian offering price is about $615 per tonne, FOB the port, which if true would put this figure near the top end of the range even though the Egyptian mills are not Tier I suppliers. The price at the low end of the range may be $540-550 per tonne for smaller-sized Ukrainian coil.

Our just-released SteelBenchmarker™ HRB world export price for May 22 was $577 per tonne, FOB the port of export. This figure was up $17 per tonne from the figure two weeks earlier.

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