In November this year, China imported 1.8259 million mt of semi-finished steel, up 46 percent month on month, as announced by the Chinese customs authorities.
This was the result of active purchases of billets ahead of the holidays in China in early October and firm demand just after. These materials arrived in China in November as expected, but the overall situation in the billet market has changed since then.
Buying activity has been continuously slowing down since early October and import volumes of semi-finished steel in China have been falling drastically for the December-January period, and so the actual import figures will go down in the coming months. In December, billet imports were at a standstill over two weeks and just recently some deals mainly for February shipment billets have been signed.
In the January-November period of the current year, China imported 12.4366 million mt of semi-finished steel, down 28.8 percent year on year. Average monthly semis imports so far this year stand at 1.13 million mt.
China also imported 25,100 mt of scrap in November, up 111.4 percent month on month, while the total volume for the January-November period amounted to 526,700 mt of scrap, which was 23-fold higher than the same period last year due to the low base last year.
