U.S. Import Permits Drop 3% from February to March
04/04/2013 - The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported that steel import permit applications for the month of March total 2,541,000 tons.
Based on the U.S. 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 March total 2,541,000 tons. This was a 3% decrease from the 2,609,000 permit tons recorded in February but up by 4% from the February preliminary imports total of 2,441,000 tons. Import permit tonnage for finished steel in March was 2,012,000, up 11% from the preliminary imports total of 1,819,000 in February. The estimated finished steel import market share in March was 23%.
Finished steel imports with large increases in March permits vs. the February preliminary included reinforcing bars (up 50%), oil country goods (up 33%), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 30%), hot rolled bars (up 18%), line pipe (up 17%) and hot rolled sheets (up 16%). Major products with significant year-to-date (YTD) increases vs. the same period in 2012 include sheets and strip galvanized electrolytic (up 50%), steel piling (up 40%), cold rolled strip (up 30%) and sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 21%).
In March, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (293,000 tons, up 18% from February), Japan (170,000 tons up 35%), China (146,000 tons, up 2%), Turkey (113,000 tons, down 1%) and Germany (97,000 tons, down 3%). Through the first three months of 2013, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (904,000 tons, down 2% from the same period in 2012), China (456,000 tons, up 54%) and Japan (435,000 tons, down 10%).
