Steel Products Prices North America
December Steel Import Trend Analysis
Written by John Packard
December 17, 2015
Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for December. Based on the data through the first 15 days of the month it appears December imports will be very similar to November. We remind our readers that license data this early in the month should be taken with a grain of salt and not literally. The final numbers can vary. What the license data does show is the trend and we found some interesting things in the numbers.
We are seeing a sharp drop in OCTG (oil country tubular goods) which was anticipated due to the weakness in the energy markets where OCTG is used.
At the moment, hot rolled is trending higher than each of the past four months with the exception of October. We noticed that is a large shipment expected from Australia which we anticipate is going to Steelscape in Washington.
Cold rolled is also beginning to trend above all four of the previous months with the biggest change being the number of tons coming from Vietnam.
The data below is based on license data released between the 12th and 18th days of each month, for that respective month (i.e. August figures are from data released August 12-18, 2015). Figures have been broken down into daily import levels for each product.
The table below shows the last three months of import data for all products along with the twelve and three month moving averages. SMU believes the 3 million ton trend for December is over-stated as we expect the final tally to be closer to the November total of 2.7 million net tons.
If you wish to explore this data in more detail, visit the Imports History page on the Steel Market Update website here. If you have any questions you may reach us at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or at (800) 432 3475. If you would like to become a Steel Market Update subscriber you can do so by clicking here and if you would like to trial our newsletter/website you can do so by clicking here.
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products Prices North America
CRU: Longs pricing trends diverge in North, South America
Most longs prices in the US were unchanged this month, except for rebar, which declined by $1.50/cwt ($30/short ton) m/m. While end-use demand is stable, inventories are well-stocked, keeping purchases limited. Domestic availability is sufficient to meet current demand, hindering the appetite for imported material. Meanwhile, prices for scrap remained under pressure in June, with […]
Nucor cuts plate prices by $125/ton, cites ongoing competition
Nucor Corp. announced that its plate mill group would cut prices for as-rolled, discrete, and normalized plate with the opening of its August order book.
Nucor cuts HR price for fourth straight week
Nucor lowered its consumer spot price (CSP) for hot-rolled (HR) coil by another $10 per short ton (st) for the first week of July. The steelmaker said in a letter to customers on Monday that its CSP base price for the week will be $670/st for all of its sheet mills with the exception of California Steel Industries (CSI).
Cliffs sets $720/ton HR price with opening of August books
Cleveland-Cliffs on Tuesday announced its monthly hot-rolled (HR) coil price of $720 per short ton (st) with the official opening of its August order book. The rate is down from last month’s price of $800/st.
CRU: Demand weakness continues to weigh on global sheet markets
Demand has remained persistently weak across the globe for sheet steel, weighing on prices. US HR coil prices fell the furthest this week as high-volume, low-priced deals were transacted as mills looked to fill order books and competed with one another amid relative demand weakness. Meanwhile, European prices were also down due to low demand […]