Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. imported a total of 2,718,000 net tons (NT) of steel in November 2017, including 2,126,000 NT of finished steel (down 14.6 percent and 16.8, respectively, vs. October final data). Year-to-date (YTD) through eleven months of 2017, total and finished steel imports are 35,632,000 and 27,637,000 NT, up 17.5 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively, vs. the same period in 2016.
Major products with significant YTD increases vs. the same period in 2016 include oil country goods (up 223 percent), line pipe (up 69 percent), standard pipe (up 41 percent), mechanical tubing (up 31 percent), hot rolled bars (up 25 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 21 percent), cold rolled sheets (up 18 percent) and sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 15 percent).
In November, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (210,000 NT, down 47 percent from October final), Germany (141,000 NT, down 10 percent), Japan (115,000 NT, up 59 percent), The Netherlands (110,000 NT, up 124 percent) and Brazil (98,000 NT, up 5 percent). For the first 11 months of 2017, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (3,558,000 NT, up 0.4 percent vs. the same period in 2016), Turkey (2,133,000 NT, down 6 percent), Japan (1,422,000 NT, down 16 percent), Germany (1,301,000 NT, up 18 percent) and Taiwan (1,204,000 NT, up 29 percent).
Published in the February 2018 Edition