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 January totaled 3,352,000 net tons (NT).
This was a 45.6 percent increase from the 2,303,000 permit tons recorded in December and a 115.8 percent increase from the December preliminary imports total of 1,553,000 NT.
Import permit tonnage for finished steel in January was 1,559,000, up 15.7 percent from the preliminary imports total of 1,347,000 in December. The estimated finished steel import market share in January was 17 percent.
Finished steel imports with large increases in January permits vs. the December preliminary included reinforcing bars (up 133 percent), sheet and strip all other metallic coatings (up 108 percent), heavy structural shapes (up 108 percent), wire rods (up 80 percent), sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 45 percent) and mechanical tubing (up 39 percent).
In January, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (159,000 NT, down 5 percent from December preliminary), Japan (76,000 NT, up 14 percent), Turkey (50,000 NT, up 646 percent), Germany (50,000 NT, down 40 percent) and Taiwan (42,000 NT, up 42 percent).
Published in the March 2020 Edition