Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. imported a total of 2,978,000 net tons (NT) of steel in July 2018, including 2,179,000 NT of finished steel (up 19.4 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, vs. June final data).
Year-to-date (YTD) through 7 months of 2018, total and finished steel imports are 20,862,000 and 16,190,000 net tons (NT), down 10.1 percent and 10.0 percent, respectively, vs. the same period in 2017.
Key finished steel products with a significant import increase in July compared to June were reinforcing bars (up 214 percent), heavy structural shapes (up 123 percent), tin plate (up 55 percent), hot rolled sheets (up 44 percent), cut lengths plates (up 31 percent), plates in coils (up 24 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 23 percent), line pipe (up 17 percent) and cold rolled sheets (up 12 percent). Major products with significant year-to-date (YTD) increases vs. the same period in 2017 include plates in coils (up 20 percent) and hot rolled sheets (up 19 percent).
In July, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (189,000 NT, down 10 percent from June final), Japan (132,000 NT, up 3 percent), Vietnam (118,000 NT, down 4 percent), Italy (107,000 NT, up 225 percent) and Taiwan (99,000 NT, up 7 percent). For the first seven months of 2018, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (1,932,000 NT, down 15 percent vs. the same period in 2017), Japan (873,000 NT, down 7 percent), Germany (758,000 NT, up 1 percent), Turkey (721,000 NT, down 58 percent) and Taiwan (659,000 NT, down 16 percent).
Published in the October 2018 Edition