US February steel imports down from January

US February steel imports down from January

According to preliminary data released from US government, US steel imports in February decreased from January but were up from previous year results. Based on this data, it is seen that US imports increased by 15.2% from the same month a year ago. US February steel imports surged to 1.8 million mts from 1.5 million mts recorded in February 2003. However, total steel imports decreased by 17.7% from the previous month's figures. This February tonnage includes 1.4 million mts of finished steel with a 10.4% decrease compared to January. In January-February 2004 period, steel imports reached 4 million mts, up by 2.8% compared to the corresponding period of last year. From January to February, the change in steel imports is due to decrease seen in blooms, billets and slabs, basically from Japan, Russia and Brazil. According to data, Turkey has exported 62'595 mts of finished steel to the US in February. This quantity was 38.4% lower compared to January. Major import quantities of finished steel into US appear to be coming from Canada, EU, Mexico, Korea and Japan. In addition, US exports of scrap have increased to about 12 million tons in 2003 from 6.3 million tons recorded in 2000 due to strong demand coming from China and Korea. The high demand has caused price increases for US manufacturers and consumers and a decline in domestic automakers' profits. Scrap users and small manufacturers request Bush administration to restrict exports to protect their domestic supplies.