Just ordered some custom stainless kitchen stuff made, and my guy is telling me how much stainless has gone up, but he said steel is just starting to spike. Not as bad as lumber, but he told me this morning to buy any steel now that I'm planning on needing anytime soon.
Nope. Just like oil prices. The cost of crude goes up and gas prices go up immediately but when the cost of crude goes down it takes for ever for gas prices to go down, if they do at all.
Freighters of Iron Ore through the Locks in the Upper Peninsula were down from 9 ships per year to 5 last year. The steel companies were anticipating lower consumer demand for things like new cars and general goods due to covid, which they were dead wrong on. Now that general manufacturing production is booming, the steel mills cant keep up and they don't have the raw materials to produce the demand levels they are currently seeing. This is typical big corporations hedging bets on demand and limiting production to keep supply and demand levels where the can charge the most for their goods. This keeps profit margins high, so investors and the stock market is happy, and so their CEO's can cash in on large bonuses that are written into their contracts. Sometimes... their bets are wrong.. this is the result.
Scrap is up generally. steel today was 125 a ton for frag feed they call it, lowest grade , anything goes . not record high, but not bad. usually steel goes down in summer. 30 a ton for the same last summer. Brass and copper are still at near record highs. stainless and clean cast is way high. aluminum slightly above average. Haul it if you got it !
I haven't bought any steel lately but have seen a lot more truck loads of crushed cars headed to Portland from the wrecking yards here in the valley. That usually means that scrap prices are up..
Wood and steel going up for sure, add gas to it too. Cheapest I can get regular for is 353.9 a gallon. It’s almost to the point I can’t afford to build something and if I could, can’t afford to drive to get the materials!
It's a good thing we have a used steel place here in athens. Just bought some steel plate some boxed tubing for 19 cents a lb. Has surface rust on it ,nothing you can't clean with a cup brush on a grinder.
Yeah, nothing close by that sells scrap, but getting to the point it’s worth a drive. I have old heavily surface rusted steel I build a lot of stuff with, just grind til shiny and weld it. To be honest, I’m kinda regretting taking all those loads in 12/13 years ago when scrap was 350/ton.
I feel this, I've been getting bids on a shop. Pole barns are usually cheaper because of the wood structure. I got quoted 30K for a 30x40 steel building with 12' walls. Ouch!
2x4 wood prices here went from $3.50 to $6.50+. The scrap yard went from paying $2.50/100 to $9.00/100. I just bought some steel grating from the steel reseller near me and it was $.60/lb. for clean used. The other dimensional steel was $.50/lb for new weathered or used.
More important to me is the drifting into the supply chain of offshore steel again. My supplier has been sending all US and Canadian supply but the last two orders once again included imported stock, mostly 4x2 and 3x2 P&O rec. tubing. It is supposed to be the same but you can instantly tell the difference when both cutting and welding. The domestic stock just welds and finishes nicer. I'm sure this is an availability issue but they will not guarantee origin at this time. And of yeah, shit is way up around here as well!
I was just quoted $200 a ton for scrap steel if I hauled it in. Parent's business uses 1/4 wall steel pipe and the last time they brought it was $9.82 per ft. They called last week and it is $18 a ft. now, just shy of doubling. this is good USA steel and not the foreign junk. They only buy the USA steel for many years just for what KOZ mentioned above, you can tell the difference when you weld and cut it and plus it doesn't have the same safety strength to it.
Bought some used steel H beams in Las Vegas last week for .55 cents a pound. They just raised their prices .10 cents a pound. They had about a dozen 60 ft. beams that looked like new steel with no rust on them that they cut up for scrap.
Just got in under the wire for the dom tubing I need for my X members. Supplier said price for dom wasn't as high as for regular tubing.
Be glad you are not an estimator in commercial construction right now! We only use domestic steel, and our tonnage price to the door is right at double what it was in November. Scrap took a big jump in December, January, February, and a bit softer one in March. Demand has far outstripped supply as things spool back up. Availability is a bigger concern, so we (and everyone else) are also pre-buying tonnage so we can continue operations/meet our obligations. (To the tune of almost seven figures in our case, and we are just one smallish operation.) It is a madhouse out there right now if you are trying to get in line for a rolling at the mills. It will flatten out some over the summer based on the mill experts we deal with, but the pricing will stay high until supply fills up. That could be a year or longer...
That sounds terribly misguided, the rise is as a result of increased demand. People are more comfortable getting out and about and some are returning to work, school, etc. all as a result of availability of vaccinations. Gas in SW suburban Chicago is around $2.89 today, from a low last year of about $2.29.
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