SUBSCRIBER NOTE: S&P Global Platts merges US steel plate prices

S&P Global Platts has combined the price assessment process for two US-based steel plate price series. Platts will change the methodology of these two steel plate prices.

This follows a period of market feedback, which started with the publication of a subscriber note on July 18, 2017 and continued with the publication of a decision note on August 9, 2017.

The majority of these changes were effective November 1, 2017.

This subscriber note relates to the following TSI-branded price series: TSI Plate USA Domestic Production FOB Midwest Mill Weekly (TS01025)

This subscriber note relates to the following Platts-branded price series: Platts Steel Plate ex-works US Southeast $/st Daily (STPRI00)

US Steel Plate: Platts will change the incoterm reflected in its US Steel Plate assessment (STPR100) to delivered Midwest from ex-works Southeast in order to best reflect the trading patterns in the underlying market from January 2, 2018.

Steel plate mills have traditionally normalized prices to a delivered basis in order to remain competitive in regions where they have no production presence. This change will be made later than the others in order to avoid causing potential inconvenience to contractual usage of this assessment. The change in incoterm will necessitate a name change of the assessment itself, which will be renamed "Platts TSI Steel Plate Delivered US Midwest."

The following changes are effective from November 1, 2017:

- Platts will discontinue the TSI-branded steel plate code TS01025, but will retain the Platts-branded code STPRI00.

- Platts will increase its quantity order size to 20 st minimum from 5 st and maintain a delivery window of four to 12 weeks and dimensions of 96 inches width, 0.375-2 inches thickness and to 240 inches length.

- Prices will be assessed daily. The price series will use a volume-weighted average calculation -- per TSI's current standard -- to determine value on an ex-works Southeast basis.

DATA PRESENTATION:

Data collected from the market will be published as "market heards" and in market commentaries -- in order to make all data used open to market scrutiny.

As a result, Platts will no longer receive submissions pursuant to the existing TSI Data Provider agreements for companies submitting to TSI's US steel indices.

Platts will publish all price series covered in this subscriber note as a single value.

The single values will be rounded to the nearest 25 cents/st.

DATA COLLECTION:

Platts will collect transactional data (including deals, firm bids, offers and indicative values) until 3:30 pm US Eastern time. The data will be collected by surveying active market participants, while any market participant will also be able to submit data to the TSI price reporting portal.

The indices will be published at 4:30 pm US Eastern time.

DATA USAGE:

In terms of data inclusion, transactions will be weighted highest, followed by bids and offers in the volume-weighted average calculations.

As well as transactions, bids and offers, Platts will consider the use of indicative values collected from active market participants across the supply chain in determining market value, thereby increasing data collection in periods of illiquidity.

FEEDBACK:

Please submit any feedback, comments or questions on this subject to pricemethodology@spglobal.com.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.