Despite a neutral plate transaction price announcement from Nucor at the end of April, US spot prices have slipped in the last couple weeks. An attempted $2.00 cwt. ($44/mt or $40/nt) increase for April shipments announced in late March has been unsuccessful, and according to SteelOrbis sources, spot prices have now fallen below levels prior to the announced increase. A previously anticipated upward trend for scrap prices has turned a bit more pessimistic in the last week, and a largely sideways move now appears to be the most likely scenario. While demand and activity for heavy plate and other specialty plate products has continued to be strong (in part due to less domestic availability), commodity products remain under downward pressure from high US buyer inventories and both current import offers and a surge in arriving imports over the last two months. US spot prices fell to $46.00-$47.00 cwt. ($1,014-$1,036/mt or $920-$940/nt) ex-Midwest mill in the last two weeks, reflecting an average decrease of about $1.00 cwt. ($22/mt or $20/nt). While there still remains some potential for further softening, overall steady demand is likely to prevent pricing from eroding too much further.
As mentioned, imports have been heavily hitting US ports recently, and US Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data show 107,336 mt (license data) of cut-length plate arrived last month, following 120,205 mt (preliminary census data) in March. Coiled plate imports in April swelled to 182,301 mt, significantly higher than the 72,448 mt in March. Meanwhile, futures offers from Ukraine, Korea and Turkey remain little changed from late April in the range of $41.00-$42.00 cwt. ($904-$926/mt or $820-$840/nt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports. With a dumping case against Italian plate recently dropped by the US government, offers from Italy have been cropping up more and more as of late, although prices remain higher than from other offshore mills at $44.00-$45.00 cwt. ($970-$992/mt or $880-$900/nt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports. Despite the multitude of offers, import plate bookings have slowed in the last couple weeks, largely as a result of a now uncertain US domestic price outlook.