February Service Center Shipments and Inventories- Canada

As in the U.S., both shipments and inventories are well below the level they enjoyed before the recession, Fig 2. Canadian service centers almost exactly balanced intake and shipments in February but inventories closed out the month 2.5 percent higher than a year ago.

Months on hand in Canada at 3.84 overall are proportionately much higher than in the US. Full details by product group are shown in Table 2.

Note: In Steel Market Update commentaries on service center performance we only discuss daily receipts and shipments because the difference in shipping days per month makes monthly data less meaningful. Also we avoid comparing consecutive months because both seasonal and commercial influences distort the data. All comparisons are made on a year / year basis to remove some of the monthly noise.