Prices
April 11, 2016
Flat, Long, and Semi-Finished Imports through March 2016
Written by Peter Wright
Licensed data for March was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on April 5th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece.
Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of March were 2,016,280 short tons which was almost exactly the same as the final February tonnage. Imports of semi-finished almost quadrupled from a very low volume of 167,517 tons in February to 782,181 tons in March. The March semi-finished tonnage, mainly slabs was the highest since February last year. We prefer not to dwell on single months results because of the extreme variability that can, and in the case of semis did occur in individual products. In the comments below we use only three month moving averages (3MMA) to get a more representative picture. The 3MMA of semi-finished through March was 453,478 tons, up by 56 percent from February. On this basis the volume of all rolled products was up by 1.1 percent, flat rolled was up by 0.4 percent of which sheet products were up by 0.2 percent. Long products were up by 1.3 percent and pipe and tube up by 6.9 percent.
