NLMK USA increased flat steel prices by $50 per ton. The price increase announced yesterday by the US subsidiary of Russian steel maker NLMK came shortly after US-based combined steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs and steel giant ArcelorMittal/Nippon Steel (AM/NS) in Calvert also raised flat steel prices by 50 dollars per ton.
The market is waiting to see if other steelmakers will follow the American plants. Two weeks ago, five steel producers in Canada and the US announced price hikes of $60 a ton, a few days apart. Some of this price increase has taken hold in the market as steelmakers are unwilling to deviate from their HRC target of $680-700/t, a price range that some of them were pushing for prior to these latest announcements.
At that time At the same time, steelmaker Nucor expects fourth-quarter sales to decline from the previous quarter. Nucor expects shipments of flat steel and long products to decline quarter-on-quarter, leading to a significant decline in revenue in the steel segment, according to the company's earnings forecast released today.