Based on the US Department of Commerce's latest Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Wednesday that steel import permit applications for the month of April were down 22 percent from March. SteelOrbis also notes that the April permit total is down 54.5 percent from final census data for steel imports in April 2008.
The 1,170,000 net ton (or 1,061,412 mt) permit total for April 2009 was down 22 percent, both from the permit figure and preliminary import figure, for March 2009. Finished steel import permits for April totaled 1,046,000 nt (948,921 mt), which represents a decrease of 27 percent from the preliminary import total for March and, AISI noted, is the lowest monthly finished steel import figure since February 1993.
Compared to last year, total steel imports in April 2009 were down approximately 54.5 percent from the April 2008 final import total of 2,570,784 nt (2,332,179 mt).
The only products which saw increases in import permits in April vs. March were electrolytic
galvanized sheet and strip, heavy structural shapes, and cold rolled sheets, while the only product up on a year-to-date basis is OCTG, which led US producers to file antidumping and countervailing duty petitions against Chinese OCTG producers last month.
Despite finished steel imports reaching a 16-year low in April, the AISI remains concerned about import market share in the US market. Thomas J. Gibson, president and CEO of AISI, said, commenting on the April data, “In view of the unprecedented downturn in the domestic steel market, one needs to look at these import volumes unrelated to past market conditions. While import volumes overall are down significantly, there has been little reduction in import market share -- and given a domestic industry that is operating at close to 40 percent -- these import volumes are displacing
production and jobs that the domestic industry critically needs.”