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    November 16, 2017

    November Imports Trending Lower by 17%

    Written by John Packard

    Domestic steelmakers got a taste of good news this week when the U.S. Department of Commerce released foreign steel import license data for the first 14 days of November. Steel Market Update sees the trend for November imports to be 2.6 million net tons or lower. If correct, this would be the first month during the 2017 calendar year for imports to come in at 2.6 million net tons or less.

    With October imports looking to be at 3.1 million net tons (we do not have Preliminary Census Data yet), this puts November as trending 17 percent lower than the prior month, as well as the 12-month moving average (12MMA). The steel market has been expecting this move for some time, but this is the first month where the data is supporting expectations.

    John Packard

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