Stainless Steel Surcharges to increase

Stainless Steel surcharges for the month of April will increase for both the UK and Europe by around 5%. The official figures released today show as follows for flat products:

1.4301 (304) 677 GBP 869 EUR

1.4404 (316) 928 GBP 1191 EUR

1.4016 (430) 319 GBP 410 EUR

1.4541 (321) 736 GBP 945 EUR

1.4512 (409) 255 GBP 327 EUR

These are some of the popular grades 304 and 316 being the most widely used in many industries, 430 is a ferritic grade widely used in catering applications and 409 the most popular grade for automotive applications mainly exhausts.

Stainless steel surcharges have been around for many years in various formats or names including alloy adjustment factor. While the primary focus is often on Nickel as this usually has the biggest effect on the outcome many other elements are included. Stainless steel prices are generally made up of a base price which tends to remain constant other than nationally announced base increases plus the surcharge. The surcharge formula takes key metals traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) other metals such as Molybdenum, Chrome and Iron then makes an allowance for currency as many of these  are traded in USD. The outcome is a surcharge for stainless steel that fluctuates every month. Each mill often has their own unique system to calculate these to avoid in issues relating to neutrality but as they are working with the same key elements the result should always be very similar. Its worth noting that the figures listed are for flat products such as sheet, coil, and plate, there are separate surcharges for long products and precision strip.

For more information on stainless steel surcharges you can contact our sales team sales@bsstainless.com or on our home page of BSstainless.com you can see daily figures for some of the key elements from the LME.