US-Russian HRC trade war begins to benefit US mills

The U.S. Department of Commerce suddenly decided that it would suspend the limit price and quota agreement with Russia’s enthusiasm and restore the pending anti-dumping duties for many years. This made Russian heat coil manufacturers appalled. Of course, the American steel mills cheered.

Prior to this, the United States had not imposed anti-dumping measures on Russian hurdling, and the stipulated limit price and quota agreement had been implemented very well.

The suspension of the agreement by the United States means that Russian steel mills will be subject to anti-dumping taxes of up to 184.56% on US HRC exports, and the Severstal Steel Works tax rate will be 73.59%, which will greatly reduce or almost prevent Russia from exporting HRC to the United States, forcing Local users are looking for other sources of hot coils, but the price in which regions is currently comparable to that of Russian coils. Although the price of Chinese hot coils is low, it is subject to anti-dumping restrictions and China cannot export to the United States. U.S. users said they would not purchase from domestic steel mills unless they needed it urgently.

The U.S. restrictions on imports of HRC will play a certain role in supporting the U.S. market. US mills may use this opportunity to raise prices, but recent prices cannot have any impact. The impact will be apparent early next year. The restrictions on the export of Russian steel mills, the steel mill is likely to increase the supply of slabs, in particular, the European rolling mill due to the reduction in the supply of Ukrainian slabs facing a shortage.

From January to August this year, the United States imported 555,000 tons of rolled steel from Russia, which is 50% of the annual quota and accounts for 3.2% of the US's volume of hot coils. At present, the American hot-rolled Midwestern steel factory base price is 640-660 US dollars / short ton, cold rolled 760-780 US dollars / short ton.