Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Wednesday that the US imported a total of 2,987,000 net tons (nt) of steel in October 2015, including 2,258,000 net tons (nt) of finished steel (up 5.4 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, vs. September final data).
Year-to-date (YTD) through ten months of 2015 total and finished steel imports are 33,889,000 and 27,438,000 net tons (nt), respectively, down 8 percent and 2 percent respectively, vs. the same period in 2014. Annualized total and finished steel imports in 2015 would be 40.7 and 32.9 million nt, down 8 percent and 2 percent respectively vs. 2014. Finished steel import market share was an estimated 26 percent in October and is estimated at 30 percent YTD.
Key finished steel products with a significant import increase in October compared to September are reinforcing bars (up 97 percent), sheets and strip all other metallic coated (up 46 percent), heavy structural shapes (up 33 percent), wire rods (up 29 percent), and hot rolled sheets (up 24 percent).
Major products with significant YTD import increases vs. the same period last year include reinforcing bar (up 47 percent), line pipe (up 25 percent), standard pipe (up 20 percent), tin plate (up 12 percent) and wire drawn (up 10 percent).
In October, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (353,000 nt, up 27 percent vs. September final), Turkey (287,000 nt, up 90 percent), Brazil (143,000 nt, up 30 percent), Japan (134,000 nt, down 29 percent) and Taiwan (130,000 nt, up 94 percent).
For ten months of 2015, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (4,302,000 nt, down 6 percent), Turkey (2,477,000 nt, up 36 percent), China (2,173,000 nt, down 20 percent), Japan (1,947,000 nt, up 10 percent) and Germany (1,302,000 nt, up 31 percent).