Prices
January 25, 2018
Imports of Flat Rolled Trending Lower, But Not OCTG
Written by Brett Linton
January imports are trending higher than expected at 2.8 million net tons, similar to what was imported one year ago. This is a bit disappointing to many in the steel industry who were expecting total steel imports to drop as they did in November and December 2017.
To get a more complete view, we look specifically at the various flat rolled products. Hot rolled is trending around 150,000 tons in January, which is lower than both the 3-month and 12-month moving averages. Looking at past years, the 150,000 tons is similar to January 2017, but significantly lower than previous years when HRC imports hit 300,000 to 500,000 tons per month.
