US Finished Steel imports from Turkey, South Korea rise sharply in October

UNITED STATES November 04 2015 6:30 PM

NEW YORK (Scrap Register): Based on the Commerce Department’s most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that steel import permit applications for the month of October total 3,386,000 net tons (NT). This was a 15% increase from the 2,936,000 permit tons recorded in September and a 22% increase from the September preliminary imports total of 2,773,000 NT. 

Import permit tonnage for finished steel in October was 2,357,000, up 9% from the preliminary imports total of 2,168,000 in September. For the first ten months of 2015 (including October SIMA and September preliminary), total and finished steel imports were 34,227,000 NT and 27,478,000 NT, respectively, down 8% and 1% from the same period in 2014. The estimated finished steel import market share in October was 28% and is 30% year-to-date (YTD).

Finished steel imports with large increases in October permits vs. the September preliminary included reinforcing bars (up 131%), heavy structural shapes (up 45%), wire rods (up 40%), sheets and strip all other metallic coated (up 40%), hot rolled sheets (up 27%) and standard pipe (up 22%). Products with significant year-to-date (YTD) increases vs. the same period in 2014 include reinforcing bar (up 50%), line pipe (up 26%), standard pipe (up 20%), tin plate (up 12%) and wire drawn (up 10%).

In October, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (364,000 NT, up 31% from September preliminary, Turkey (313,000 NT up 107%), Brazil (189,000 NT, up 72%), Japan (141,000, down 22%) and Taiwan (135,000 NT, up 103%). Through the first ten months of 2015, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (4,313,000 NT, down 6% from the same period in 2014), Turkey (2,503,000 NT, up 37%) and China (2,167,000, down 20%).