The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Wednesday that based on the US Department of Commerce's Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, steel import permit applications in January totaled 2.691 million net tons (nt), a 21 percent increase from the 2.233 million nt recorded in December. It was also a 35 percent increase from December's preliminary imports total of 1.997 million nt. Import permit tonnage for finished steel was 2.103 million nt--a 39 percent increase--and finished steel import market share in the US was 23 percent.
Import permit applications in the US from Korea totaled 358,000 nt (up 78 percent from December), the highest among total import permit applications in US during December. Import permit applications from Turkey were 184,000 nt (up 179 percent from December); Japan with 150,000 nt (up 45 percent from December); Germany with 105,000 nt (up 25 percent from December); and China with 95,000 nt (up 10 percent from December).