USA Spot HRC Still Climbing and Scrap Tags Along for the Ride

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A slight flurry of buying activity this week has pushed spot market prices of hot-rolled coil (HRC) in the US market higher again this week, clocking in at about $915-$940, depending on order size and mill location, according to market participants. “Most mills’ lead times are already into the last week of January,” said one steel distributor. Others generally agreed, pegging lead times at five-to-seven weeks.

Meanwhile, with the ferrous scrap buying period expected to end soon, prime scrap for December has settled in several regions up $10 over last month. Some other grades are also up $10-$20. “It was looking sideways, but then the scrap export market strengthened, and both coil and many long products achieved price hikes,” explained a scrap seller, “so we caught some of that tailwind.”

On Monday, Nucor increased its Consumer Spot Price (CSP) for HRC to $930 per ton, nearing its $935 peak in March-April of this year—and reaching one of the highest marks since it started. For the West Coast, Nucor’s CSI price is now $980 per ton.

News of US Steel’s plans to restart its Granite City Works’ B blast furnace didn’t damper any current activity or immediately damage the ongoing positive market psychology, “because that won’t happen for a few months,” said a steel trader.

In fact, it may have helped the current market’s mindset because it was couched as a demand-driven move. “After several months of carefully analyzing customer demand, we made the decision to restart a blast furnace,” said Dave Burritt, president and CEO of US Steel. “Steel remains a highly competitive and highly cyclical industry, but we are confident in our ability to safely and profitably operate the mill to meet 2026 demand.”

US Steel is eyeing an April 1 restart of the second of its two blast furnaces at Granite City, but it could come sooner, the United Steelworkers local-union president told the Belleville News-Democrat. “It’s definitely going to be a lot of hard work — but, at the end of the road, it’s going to pay off because Nippon has not got to see what we can do with primary operations,” said Craig McKey, who leads USW Local 1899.

Restarting the second blast furnace is likely to cost US Steel between $25 million-$30 million, according to the local newspaper. Management said that cash will not come out of the $11 billion that Nippon Steel has promised to invest in other existing US Steel facilities, McKey explained.

“Although the domestic steel supply-demand balance can shift quickly before April, I don’t see Granite City’s BF return as potential oversupply,” a steel trader told WSD, “because other US Steel plants, like Gary, will begin their Nippon-related makeovers next year and there will be outages.”

WSD Take:

After some time to digest the current market situation during a brief market malaise surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday, upward momentum continues to be escalating in the US HRC market. Now seems to be as good of a time as ever to re-confirm our November forecast that December spot prices could reach $950 per ton in the coming weeks.

While few market participants are showing true signs of optimism regarding underlying demand, supply-demand dynamics remain off-kilter as inventories remain low (heightening apparent demand for steel) and availability of tonnage is limited by extensive maintenance schedules and historically low import volumes.

Generally, the re-commissioning of a long-idled blast furnace operation would signal that a market turnaround is on its way; however, given the context of the startup (ongoing maintenance at USS Gary), and the obvious tightness of the USA market amid historically low import volumes, the necessity for additional tons is clear.

Based on the latest steel import licensing data, import volumes for sheet products in November were estimated at 5.18 million tons on an annualized basis—this is nothing short of a radically low figure. To put this in historical context, prior to August, the lowest monthly importing figure since 2017 was 7.1 million tons, which occurred in January 2021, and sheet imports were 8.8 million tons on an annualized basis one year ago. The key questions for 2026 will be whether prices rise enough to incentivize a return to the global market and whether USMCA will provide increased access to the US market for Canadian and Mexican sheet producers. In the absence of a resurgence of demand, those factors may play the most significant role in determining the stability of HRC prices in early 2026.

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