U.S. Slab Imports at a Three-Year High

U.S. steelmakers have imported 7.19 million short tons of semi-finished steel so far this year, an increase of 9.1 percent over 2016, according to government data on October preliminary imports and November licenses as of Nov. 27 (Figure 1).

Semi-finished steel includes slabs, blooms and billets, which mills hot roll into coils and other products. Seventy-five percent or 5.4 million tons were classified as slabs, defined as “semi-finished products of iron or nonalloy steel containing by weight less than 0.25 percent of carbon, of rectangular (other than square) cross section having a width measuring at least four times the thickness.” Slab imports have increased by 24 percent year to date.