US Preliminary Steel Import Permit Applications dropped 3% in March

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported today that the steel import permit applications for the month of March this year totaled 3,744 ,000 net tons (NT). This is 3% down when compared with 3,855,000 permit tons recorded during February. This includes finished steel permit tonnage of 3,275,000 NT.

Year-to-date (YTD) total and finished steel imports are 11,849,000 and 9,756,000 net tons (NT), respectively, up 22% and 36% respectively, vs. the same period in 2014. Finished steel import market share was estimated at 32% in March.

Key finished steel products with a significant import increase in March permits compared to February preliminary are steel piling (up 313%), reinforcing bars (up 102%), sheet and strip all other metallic coatings (up 93%), wire drawn (up 50%), line pipe (up 40%) and hot rolled bars (up 27%).

The major products that recorded significant rise in import volumes year-to-date in comparison with the similar three-month period in 2014 include line pipe (up111%), heavy structural shapes (up 93%), cut lengths plates (up 80%), plates in coils (up 52%), standard pipe (up 47%), cold rolled sheets (up 40%), reinforcing bars (up 34%), oil country goods (up 33%), sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 30%), tin plate (up 25%), hot rolled sheets (up 21%) and sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 17%).

In March, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (618,000 NT, up 29% vs. February preliminary), Turkey (422,000 NT, up 46%), China (241,000 NT, down 9%), Japan (210,000 NT, down 1%) and India (177,000 NT, up 92%).

The largest offshore suppliers for the initial three-month period of the year were South Korea (1,936,000 NT, up 66% from 2014), Turkey (1,009,000 NT, up 115%) and China (705,000 NT, up 24%).

Courtesy: American Iron and Steel Institute