US cold-rolled stainless sheet prices rose during February as domestic mills held to announced price increases, market sources said Tuesday.
North American Stainless, Outokumpu CoilAmericas, AK Steel and Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) last month announced they would be reducing the functional discount on stainless sheet by 2 percentage points, effective with March shipments.
Mills also cut back on offering more aggressive discounts on large spot orders as supply has tightened, according to one service center source.
"I don't think they're really making deals right now because of the ATI situation," they said. ATI idled its melt shop and sheet finishing operations in Midland, Pennsylvania, in January.
With Midland offline, lead times have jumped to seven to eight weeks and are holding steady at those levels for Types 304 and 316, a second service center source said, stressing that the extended lead times are a result of having less supply, not more demand. "Demand is still low," he said.
Earlier this month, US stainless producers submitted petitions to the federal Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission seeking antidumping and countervailing duties on what they allege are unfairly traded imports of Chinese stainless sheet and narrow strip, but market sources said it has been been difficult to figure out how this may impact the market in the near term.
Some have said the trade case could put a floor on stainless prices, but the second service center source said the spread between import and domestic pricing has been so narrow on commodity-grade stainless sheet that import buying has been light in recent months.
"Imports are nearly nonexistent at this point, so the point is pretty moot," said the first service center source.
On Tuesday, Platts raised its March transaction price assessments for Types 304 and 316 stainless sheet to 85-87 cents/lb and 110-113 cents/lb, respectively. Type 304 is up from 82-84 cents/lb, while Type 316 rose from 107-109 cents/lb in February.
Type 430 stainless sheet transaction prices increased to 68-70 cents/lb from 64-66 cents/lb previously. All prices are on an ex-mill basis.
