Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. imported a total of 2,446,000 net tons (NT) of steel in December 2017, including 1,877,000 NT of finished steel (down 11.4 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively, vs. November final data). For the full year of 2017, total and finished steel imports are 38,121,000 and 29,558,000 NT, up 15.4 percent and 12.2 percent, respectively, compared to full year 2016. Finished steel import market share was an estimated 22 percent in December and is estimated at 27 percent for full year 2017.
Major products with significant increases for full year 2017 vs. 2016 include oil country goods (up 196 percent), line pipe (up 63 percent), standard pipe (up 40 percent), mechanical tubing (up 30 percent), hot rolled bars (up 23 percent), cold rolled sheets (up 16 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 14 percent) and sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 10 percent).
In December, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (192,000 NT, down 10 percent from November final), Germany (105,000 NT, down 26 percent), Brazil (96,000 NT, down 2 percent), Japan (81,000 NT, down 29 percent) and Turkey (58,000 NT, down 13 percent). For full year 2017, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (3,753,000 NT, down 2 percent vs. the same period in 2016), Turkey (2,191,000 NT, down 9 percent), Japan (1,504,000 NT, down 16 percent), Germany (1,405,000 NT, up 18 percent) and Taiwan (1,245,000 NT, up 15 percent).
Published in the March 2018 Edition