US Steel mill shipments surged 7.5% in January

By Paul Ploumis

ALBANY (Scrap Monster): According to latest statistics released by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the steel shipment by country’s mills rose sharply by 7.5% month-on-month in January this year. Also, the Jan ’17 shipments recorded notable increase of nearly 9.6%, when matched with the shipments during the same month in 2016.

The US steel mill shipments during January this year totaled 7,708,416 net tons, significantly higher by 7.5% when matched with 7,173,245 net tons shipped during December 2016. Year-on-year, the steel shipments registered increase of 9.6%. The shipments had totaled 7,031,307 net tons in January 2016. Several steel products witnessed significant rise in shipment volumes during the month. When matched with the prior month, shipments of hot dipped galvanized sheets surged higher by 14%. The shipment of cold rolled sheets was also up by 13%. Meantime, the shipment of hot dipped rolled sheets increased by nearly 4% in January 2017, in comparison with the prior month.

The US steel import permit applications had totaled 2,927,000 net tons (NT) during January this year. The monthly permits recorded 7.6% jump when matched with 2,719,000 permit ton applications recorded in December last year. The permits were up considerably by 8.5% when compared with the Dec ’16 final imports total of 2,698,000 net tons.

The import permit tonnage of finished steel totaled 2,323,000 net tons during January 2017, significantly higher by 7.7% when matched with the final imports total of 2,157,000 net tons in December last year. Imports permits of hot rolled strips surged higher by 89% during the month when compared with the prior month. The other products which witnessed significant rise in import permits were standard rails (up 45%) and reinforcing bars (up 43%). South Korea recorded the highest number of permit applications in Jan ’17. The permit applications from South Korea have increased by more than 21% from Dec ’16 final to 326,000 NT. The other countries that topped the list of import permit applications were Turkey (271,000 NT) and Taiwan (131,000 NT).

Meantime, the weekly statistics released by the steel body indicates that raw steel production by the country declined marginally by 0.6% during the week ending March 4th, 2017.

The total domestic raw steel output during the week ending March 4th, 2017 was 1,760,000 net tons. The AISI data indicates that the US raw steel production has dropped slightly by 0.6% during the week. This is in comparison with the previous week (ie., the week ended February 25th)  production figures of 1,770,000 net tons. However, the weekly production increased by 3.8% in comparison with production of 1,695,000 net tons during same week the previous year.

The capability utilization rate of US steel makers was 74.3% during the week ended March 4th, 2017. The capacity utilization rate has declined marginally when compared with 74.7% during the previous week (ie., the week ending February 25th). However, capacity utilization was significantly higher when compared with the rate of 72.5% during same week the previous year.

The crude steel production by various districts during the week was as follows:- North East (203,000 NT), Great Lakes (689,000 NT), Midwest (166,000 NT), Southern (627,000 NT) and Western (75,000 NT).

The year-to-date crude steel output through March 4th, 2017 totaled 15,596,000 net tons, up by 4.6% when matched with the output of 14,917,000 net tons during the same period last year. The capacity utilization rate during the period climbed higher from 70.9% a year before to 73.1% during the period ended March 4th this year.