Steelmaking Commodity Prices

Input Cost Notes

Earlier Commodity Cost Information
To download earlier (1980 onward) thermal coal, iron ore or natural gas time series, please click here. For earlier electricity prices, click here. Full data set in format above is also available with our compliments for year 2000 costs, for 2001 costs for 2002 cost estimates and for 2003 or 2004 data, for 2005 or for 2006. We also publish historic and recent US export metallurgical coal prices (also called 'coking coal' or 'met coal').

Information Sources
Thermal coal, iron ore and natural gas data reproduced with thanks and permission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF Primary Commodity Prices: www.imf.org). Steel scrap figures [except estimates] are courtesy of Recycling International: www.recyclinginternational.com. Coking coal and electricity prices are provided with thanks from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy: www.eia.doe.gov. Letter 'e' against any figure above indicates management estimate from steelonthenet.com.

Definitions
Thermal coal is Australian, 1200 btu/pound, less than 1% sulfur 14% ash, f.o.b. Newcastle/Port Kembla, with prices expressed in US $/metric tonne. Coking coal is average quarterly U.S. coke plant purchase price (source: EIA), with cost, insurance and freight included (c.i.f.); please note that this price series is expressed as a cost per short ton. Iron ore is 67.55% iron content, fine, contract price to Europe, f.o.b. Ponta da Madeira, shown in US cents per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu). Natural gas is Russian, border price in Germany, expressed in US $ per 1000 cubic meters of gas. Ferrous scrap is HMS1 heavy steel scrap (1/4 inch), monthly lowest scrap export price - highest scrap export price, f.o.b. Rotterdam, price in US $/metric tonne. Electricity prices are average monthly U.S. prices for industrial consumers in US cents per kilowatt hour.

Iron Ore Costs
We are frequently asked to clarify iron ore cost calculations, as expressed 'per iron unit', or 'per tonne of iron ore'. Accordingly, here is a simple example using figures from the table above, as would have been paid by a European steelmaker purchasing Brazilian iron ore. The Brazil H1 2009 fob price for 67.55% Fe iron ore was ~US cents 101/dmtu (equivalent to $1.01/dmtu) as shown above (dmtu: dry metric tonne unit). The H1 2009 fob European price was thus $68.2/tonne of iron ore (which is $1.01*67.55%). The unit dmtu refers to 1% Fe content, or to price per 10 kg iron unit.

Liquid Steel Cost
To see how the input costs can be used to assess current steelmaking costs, visit our EAF steel cost or go to our integrated steelmaking cost page.