US Preliminary Steel Imports tank 8% in August

By  Paul Ploumis 28 Sep 2015  Last updated at  01:44:24 GMT

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported today that the U.S. imported a total of 3,016,000 net tons (NT) of steel in August 2015, including 2,439,000net tons (NT) of finished steel (down 8.2% and 6.7%, respectively, vs. July final data).

Year-to-date (YTD) total and finished steel imports are 28,023,000 and 22,915,000 net tons (NT), respectively, down 2% and up 7% respectively, vs. the same period in 2014. Finished steel import market share was an estimated 26% in July.

Key finished steel products with a significant import increase in August compared to July are wire rods (up 45%), hot rolled sheets (up 29%), oil country goods (up 15%) and standard pipe (up 14%).

The major products that recorded significant rise in import volumes year-to-date in comparison with the similar eight-month period in 2014 are re-inforcing bars (up 51%), line pipe (up 40%), standard pipe (up 30%), sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 19%), tin plate (up 17%), wire drawn (up 11%), cold rolled sheets (up 11%) and plates in coils (up 10%)

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In August, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (303,000 NT, down 1% vs. July final), Japan (215,000 NT, up 20%), Brazil (211,000 NT, up 124%), China (157,000 NT, down 45%) and Turkey (153,000 NT, down 41%).

The largest offshore suppliers for the initial eight-month period of the year were South Korea (3,670,000 NT, up 1%), Turkey (2,020,000 NT, up 55%), China (1,961,000 NT, down 3%), Japan (1,626,000 NT, up 20%) and Germany (1,052,000 NT, up 34%)

Courtesy: American Iron and Steel Institute