The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) announced Wednesday that based on the US Department of Commerce's most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, steel import permit applications for February totaled 1,815,000 net tons (nt), 13 percent below the 2,081,000 permit tons recorded in January.
For finished steel products, import permit tonnage in February was 1,368,000 nt, down 16 percent from the preliminary imports total of 1,632,000 nt in January but up 12 percent versus February 2010 final imports.
The largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for Korea (161,000 nt, down 25 percent from January), Japan (128,000 nt, up 2 percent from January), Germany (70,000 nt, down 11 percent from January) and Turkey (64,000 nt, up 168 percent), while finished steel import permits for reinforcing bar (up 54 percent) registered the largest increases in February over January.