The hot-rolled and cold-rolled coil market in the US remained in the holiday dead zone on Wednesday as the Christmas and New Years' holiday weekends have left many absent.
A mill source said there is "absolutely nothing going on this week." He echoed the comments of a second mill source on Tuesday who said it would be "very quiet" through the week.
One service center source said he was in the office but "there was nothing going on though" with "no price increases and no import offers of interests." He added his catalogued prices for HRC and CRC were $600/st and $820/st, respectively. Another increase was likely but he was not sure about the timing.
S&P Global Platts maintained its daily HRC and CRC assessments at $590-$600/st and $800-$820/st, respectively. Both prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
Meanwhile, December preliminary import licenses were down for sheet products to 109,183 mt, 145,371 mt and 259,865 mt for HRC, CRC and hot-dipped galvanized sheet, respectively. December's preliminary HRC import total was down from November's preliminary US Census Bureau tally of 166,706 mt, while CRC sheets fell from 237,410 mt according to preliminary Census data.
However, HDG preliminary import licenses were slightly up from November's preliminary Census level of 243,248 mt following increases from the UAE, South Africa and Russia.
