Nucor’s Laxton Says HRC CSP Has Helped Avoid Price Whiplashes
A little more than two years ago Nucor launched publication of its weekly Consumer Spot Price (CSP) for hot-rolled coil (HRC). Since then, market participants far and wide have made it a habit to regularly check the publicly available number every Monday at 10 AM ET on Nucornow.com. WSD caught up with Nucor’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Steve Laxton, on the sidelines of this week’s Global Steel Dynamics Forum (GSDF), hosted by World Steel Dynamics and the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST).
In short, he is very pleased with the traction the CSP has garnered, and more importantly, the transparency it has brought to the market.
“That’s what we’ve worked so hard to do – really make it transparent,” he told WSD. “You’ll recall, when it first came out (April 2024), people thought it might be gamesmanship, they were like, ‘Okay, what are you really up to?’”
He explained: “We told the market at the time, we want to give a transparent signal where we would take an order five weeks lead time out, because, when the industry gets extended lead times there can be an overreaction, and then people run the price up beyond where really it should be.”
Nucor’s CSP this week was increased $10 to $1,125 per ton. It was the 22nd hike in a row, beginning on January 20th of this year. On a weekly basis, each increase has been either $5/ton or $10/ton; only one—on March 2nd—was $15/ton. That’s a weekly average of $7.95 per ton since late January.
For sure, Nucor’s HRC price moves have been very measured, slow and steady. And that’s a departure from years past— but not too long ago—when one steel producer might announce a $40 per ton increase, for example, followed by another mill going up $50, and yet another producer trying to get $60 per ton.
“In this industry, what you saw were these (price) whiplashes,” Laxton said, “But real demand was changing very little.”
He adds: “But what’s happened is the whole flat-rolled system is getting more efficient and that’s good. And we only have 18% of the market in sheet. So, we’re not like the big dominant, sheet player right?”
A service center executive at the GSDF agreed. “Nucor isn’t the biggest flat-rolled producer, but its CSP has emerged as a viable—and major—market indicator,” he told WSD.