US Finished Steel Imports See Market Share Declining to 24%

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data published by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) suggests considerable decline in market share of US finished steel imports during February this year. The steel import permit applications for total and finished steel declined during the month. It must be noted that AISI had earlier forecast 6% slump in US finished steel import during the entire year 2018.

During February this year, the steel import permit applications totaled 2.428 million net tons (NT). This is significantly lower by more than 21% when compared with the permit tons of 3.081 million NT recorded during the prior month and also lower by nearly 16% from the preliminary imports of 2.875 million NT in January this year. The permit tonnage for finished steel too has declined by over 16% from 2.327 million NT in January to 1.950 million NT in February this year.

The total steel imports during the initial two-month period of the current year witnessed a decline of 4.2% over the corresponding two-month period in 2016. Meantime, the finished steel imports too posted a decline of 3% during Jan-Feb ’18.

The US finished steel imports recorded a market share of 24% in February. The market share stood at 25% during the initial two-month period of the year.

ALSO READ: US Finished Steel Import Permits Soared 18% in January

The permit applications of heavy structural shapes surged higher by 56% over the Jan ’18 preliminary imports. Wire Rods reported 35% jump in permit applications over the month. The finished steel products to witness notable increase in import permits during the first two months of 2018 were oil country goods (+58%), hot rolled bars (+29%), hot rolled sheets (+28%) and line pipe (+27%).

The largest number of import permit applications in February was for South Korea. However, the permit applications from the country dropped significantly by 26% from January preliminary to total 252,000 NT. South Korea was followed by Germany and Japan with import permits totaling 111,000 NT and 110,000 NT respectively.