US Finished Steel Import Market Share Zoomed to 27% in 2017

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The U.S. finished steel import market share was estimated at 27% for the full year 2017, higher when matched with 2016. However, the market share stood low at 22% during the month of December 2017 alone, thereby recording third straight month of decline.

In 2017, the U.S imports of finished steel mill products rose significantly by 12.2%. The finished steel imports by the US totaled 29.558 million net tons (NT) in 2017, as compared with the imports of 26.338 million NT in 2016. In its earlier report, the American iron and Steel Institute (AISI) had predicted that US finished steel imports are likely to cross 30 million NT in 2017. For the month of December 2017 alone, the finished steel imports recorded 13.5% decline upon comparison with November final data. As per preliminary figures, the finished steel imports in Dec ’17 totaled 1.877 million NT as against the imports of 2.170 million NT in November 2017.

The US imports of finished steel mill products from Russia witnessed notable jump during the year. The yearly imports from Russia skyrocketed by 157% over the previous year to total 796,000 NT in 2017. The cumulative imports from the country had totaled only 310,000 NT in 2016. The imports from Brazil surged higher by 20% from 823,000 NT to 987,000 NT. The other countries to record increased shipment of finished steel to the US were Germany (+17.9%) and Taiwan (+14.9%). On the other hand, Japan (-16.4%), Turkey (-9.3%) and China (-5.7%) recorded sharp decline in finished steel supplies to the US.

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The average finished steel imports during the current 3-month period from October to December 2017 based on preliminary imports has declined by 16.3% when matched with the rolling average of actual imports during the prior three months from July to September ’17.

Among offshore countries, the imports from Turkey declined the most by over 50% during the final three months of the year, when compared with the actual imports during July-Sep ’17. The other countries of origin to report decline in export volumes to the US were Russia (-45.5%), Taiwan (-39.5%) and Japan (-38.3%). Meantime, the three-month cumulative imports from the Netherlands (+14.1%), Brazil (+6.5%) and Germany (+0.2%) increased over the actual imports during the prior three-month period.