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US steel sheet prices hold, but softening eyed

February 08, 2012 - 01:33 GMT Location: Chicago

KEYWORDS: flat rolled pricing , steel orders , steel shipments , lead times

Although January shipments were fairly strong for flat-rolled steel distributors and their downstream consumers, the pace of business activity has hit a February lull as buyers wait to see what happens with pricing.

"We are in kind of a holding pattern. Mills are trying to hold the pricing and nobody is breaking ranks—yet," a Mississippi Valley carbon steel processor said.

A northern Ohio flat-rolled service center operator agreed. "The mills are holding tight to blanket order prices and not dropping (them) to move inventory," he said. "The mills are doing everything right to keep things moving. They are looking at their demand and holding steady."

The northern Ohio service center operator said he’s still being quoted $740 per ton for hot-rolled, with coated...

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