First Look at October 2014 Import Trend

Steel Market Update (SMU) is changing the way we look at the import license data. As we have mentioned on numerous occasions, the steel import license data can only provide an idea as to how imports are shaping up for the current month. The licenses received have been tending to surge at the beginning of the month and then tailing off as the month progresses. So, we thought it might be better to look at steel import license data at this point in time against prior months to see if there is any significant change in the numbers.

The reason why is the preliminary data collected through the 14th of October is suggesting that we will have another blockbuster month and it may be a little early to make that prediction. If import licenses continued at the pace seen during the first 14 days of the month… well, we would exceed the 4.0 million net tons from September and beat out the high point for the year which was set in May. We don’t think we will see imports anywhere near the 5.2 million net tons suggested in our simple mathematical calculation (see table). However, we could very well see another month similar to September or about 4.0 million net tons.