Steel Products

Canadian Service Centers Drop Flat Rolled Inventories to 4.6 Months

February 20, 2013

Canadian distributors shipped a total of 522,300 tons (all products) during the month of January. This is down 6.9 percent (actual) from the previous year. The daily shipping rate was 23,700 tons per day, a marked improvement from December’s 16,900 tons per day but barely above November’s 23,600 tons per day. On a seasonally adjusted basis shipments were off 11.3 percent compared to the prior January according to the MSCI report.

Inventories stood at 1,774,200 tons which is down from the 1,832,800 tons on the service center floors at the end of December. This represents 3.4 months supply on a non-seasonally adjusted basis (down from 5.4 months) or 3.7 months on a seasonally adjusted view (down from 3.8 months).

Carbon Flat Rolled

Canadian service centers shipped 267,900 tons of flat rolled in January, a 7.9 percent drop from one year ago (actual). The daily shipment rate was 12,200 tons per day which is up from the 8,200 tons shipped during the month of December. On a seasonally adjusted basis shipments were 12.3 percent lower than one year ago.

Inventories of flat rolled stood at 1,100,000 tons at the end of January which is 11.8 percent higher than one year ago. Months on hand stood at 4.1 (unadjusted), an improvement over the 6.8 months held at the end of December or 4.6 months (SA) which is down slightly from the 4.7 months in December.

Plate

Plate shipments totaled 108,600 tons out of the Canadian distributors based on MSCI data for January. The daily shipment rate was 4,900 tons per day. Plate shipments were actually better this January than last year by 2.0 percent (actual).

Inventory levels stood at 315,200 tons at the end of January which is lower than the 326,300 tons reported at the end of December. Months on hand stood at 2.9 (unadjusted) down from 4.6 months and 3.3 months (SA) this remained the same as the prior month.

Pipe & Tube

Distributors shipped 53,900 tons of pipe and tube in Canada during the month of January. The daily shipping rate was 2,400 tons which was less than the 2,800 tons shipped per day one year earlier.

Inventory levels stood at 123,500 tons, down 10,100 tons from the prior month and 5.4 percent lower than January 2012 levels. The number of months of inventory on hand stood at 2.3 (unadjusted) an improvement over the previous month’s 3.6 (unadjusted) and 2.4 (SA) which is down from 2.6 (SA).