Nickel,
Moly and Chrome increased substantially in August! August’s Nickel
averaged $8.91 per pound versus July’s $7.2505 per pound. The
304/304L surcharge for October will increase around $0.18 to $0.8342
per pound versus $0.6634 in September. August’s Moly averaged
$17.4130, up about $4.70 from July’s number. The 316/316L
surcharge for October will increase more than $0.30 to $1.3316 per
pound versus $1.0090 in September.
There
is evidence that stainless steel producers have raised their capacity
utilization rates in the 2nd quarter time frame. In the
USA mill order books would certainly bear this trend out as it now
appears that production rates have improved to around 60% of capacity
compared to the 40-50% rate that had been the case in the first half of
2009.
Carbon
and stainless mill lead times are around 4 to 6 weeks.
