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 November totaled 2,678,000 net tons (NT). This was a 3.2 percent increase from the 2,594,000 permit tons recorded in October and a 2.2 percent decrease from the October final imports total of 2,740,000.
Import permit tonnage for finished steel in November was 2,304,000, down 2.2 percent from the final imports total of 2,356,000 in October. For the first eleven months of 2021 (including November SIMA permits and October final imports), total and finished steel imports were 29,239,000 NT and 21,347,000 NT, up 42.5 percent and 44.2 percent, respectively, from the same period in 2020. The estimated finished steel import market share in November was 25 percent and is 21 percent year-to-date (YTD).
Finished steel imports with large increases in November permits vs. the October final imports include black plate (up 82 percent), heavy structural shapes (up 53 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 32 percent), hot rolled bars (up 32 percent), standard pipe (up 26 percent), line pipe (up 26 percent), sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 21 percent), tin plate (up 21 percent), oil country goods (up 16 percent) and cold rolled sheets (up 14 percent).
Products with significant year-to date (YTD) increases vs. the same period in 2020 include hot rolled sheets (up 126 percent), plates in coils (up 102 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 66 percent), wire rods (up 60 percent), oil country goods (up 60 percent), cut lengths plates (up 59 percent), cold rolled sheets (up 38 percent), hot rolled bars (up 31 percent), heavy structural shapes (up 30 percent), sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 28 percent), wire drawn (up 24 percent), and reinforcing bars (up 21 percent).
In November, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (220,000 NT, down 2 percent from October final), Vietnam (191,000 NT, up 74 percent), Japan (153,000 NT, up 90 percent), Turkey (118,000 NT, down 21 percent) and The Netherlands (94,000 NT, up 76 percent). Through the first eleven months of 2021, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (2,538,000 NT, up 42 percent from the same period last year), Turkey (1,437,000 NT, up 162 percent) and Japan (982,000 NT, up 38 percent).
Published in the January 2022 Edition