Prices
Regional Imports, Cut-to-Length Plate, Through June
Written by Peter Wright
August 12, 2019
Year to date, June, total cut-to-length plate imports were down by 5.1 percent, but the Great Lakes region was down by 43.3 percent and the Gulf region was up by 201.4 percent.
SMU now offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between these two. Our intention is to report regional imports for six flat rolled products every other month. This month we are reporting through June.
National level import reports do a good job of measuring the overall market pressure caused by the imports of individual products. The downside is that there are huge regional differences, and we believe that buyers and sellers should have an understanding of regional differences. Figure 1 shows the year-to-date tonnage into each region and the huge variation between them. Figure 1a presents the same data as a pie chart.
Figure 2 shows the year-to-date change for each of seven regions and the change at the national level. Volume declined this year through June in five regions and increased in two regions.
Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6 show the history of CTL plate imports by region since March 2013 on a three-month moving average basis. Note, the Y axis scales are not the same.
Regions are compiled from the following districts (we will report on tonnage by district and source nation next month):
Atlantic North—Baltimore, Boston, New York, Ogdensburg, Philadelphia, Portland ME, St. Albans and Washington, D.C.
Atlantic South—Charleston, Charlotte, Miami, Norfolk and Savannah.
Great Lakes—Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Duluth, Great Falls, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Pembina.
Gulf—Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, San Juan, St. Louis and Tampa.
Pacific North—Anchorage, Columbia Snake, San Francisco and Seattle.
Pacific South—Los Angeles and San Diego.
Rio Grande Valley—Laredo and El Paso.
Peter Wright
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