US-made HRC Spot Prices Flirt with $1,300/ton
Several US mill sales reps tell WSD that their customers are in a panic to conclude 2027 flat-rolled steel contracts, driven by worries about securing tons next year amid frustratingly tight hot-rolled coil availability. One mill rep even claimed to have booked HRC at $1,300 per ton for December delivery, but market participants canvassed by WSD about that level considered it more of an outlier than the norm.
“I don’t think the HRC spot market-at-large is at $1,300 per ton—not yet,” said a buyer in the southern US. “But I can see it getting there. If you can place a spot order this week, I’d say it would be at $1,260-$1,280 per ton; Next week, probably more.”
A Midwest service center buyer noted: “Mills’ November order books are all closed, but some are booking December,” “It really is the tightest market I’ve experienced.” Lead times are at eight weeks or longer, market sources agreed.
“Spot buyers are hunting for domestic material, and willing to pay, because imports have not been enough to fill all their needs,” said another mill sales rep.
“Imports are arriving, but not in sufficient volumes to have real impact,” a steel trader said.
A distributor told WSD: “The market has changed; some mills are avoiding giving contracts to smaller buyers. Others are closing the traditional gap between the min-max contract terms.”
Meanwhile, HRC futures activity on the CME early Thursday saw the December contract reach a high of $1,346/ton—but in sparse volume trading.
WSD Take:
Imports are on the upswing, and the pace is accelerating. Revised September data show sheet product imports running at 7.5 million net tons annualized, up from 7.3 million tons annualized the prior month and well above the low of 5.5 million tons annualized during the first quarter of 2026. Early October data point to a far sharper move: through the first 12 days of the month, sheet imports were running at 9.5 million tons annualized. Partial-month figures can shift considerably as a month plays out, and that number may well be adjusted, but the direction is hard to miss.
The slab story still holds. Slab imports surged to 8.7 million net tons annualized in September, up from 7.4 million tons annualized the prior month. That pace is more than double 2025, when the US imported about 4.1 million net tons of slab, and more than double the first half of 2026, when slab imports averaged roughly 327,000 net tons per month. A surge of that size points to a significant increase in re-rolling production at US mills over the last several months, adding domestic sheet supply on top of rising finished imports.
The danger now is underestimating the supply shift that rising imports could bring over the next handful of months. Combined with the slab-fueled increase in re-rolled output, the inflow should begin to ease the tight supply-demand balance that has supported high HRC prices, even as mill outages keep spot availability constrained in the near term. Should additional domestic capacity come on as well, namely Cleveland-Cliffs’ Dearborn Works and Nucor’s West Virginia sheet mill, the fall in steel prices in 2027 could be substantial and arrive more quickly than most expect. Historically, that is almost always how pricing corrections play out.
That outlook, however, carries substantial trade-policy risk. Domestic mills have already lodged complaints through the AISI and SMA, and the possibility of increased or targeted increases in Section 232 tariffs cannot be ruled out. A decision on Section 301 tariffs is also expected soon. Either move could cut short the relief that imports and re-rolling are beginning to provide.