Plate prices in the United States were steady on Friday September 28, but sentiment that the market will have nowhere to go but up was less prevalent than in previous weeks.
The Fastmarket AMM assessment for cut-to-length plate was at $48.50 per hundredweight ($970 per short ton) on Friday, unchanged compared with the previous week.Lead times are approximately eight to 10 weeks, market participants said."Regular commercial grades are out to December [at some mills]. They [mills] won't call it allocation. It's 'controlled order entry,'" one West Coast distributor source said.With supplies tight, he predicted that mills might nudge prices higher with new offers.Plate prices have been supported by expectations that scrap pricing will be steady or higher and that imports will remain limited in the fourth quarter, sources...