Based on the US Department of Commerce’s most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, steel import permit applications for the month of December 2020 totaled 1,878,709 mt. This was a 50.9 percent increase from the 1,244,504 mt in preliminary census data totals recorded in November and a 29.9 percent increase from the 1,445,829 mt in census data totals recorded in December 2019.
In December, import permits for flat steel products totaled 643,411 mt, up 12.3 percent from November’s census data; import permits for long steel products totaled 257,843 mt, down 13.3 percent from November; import permits for pipe and tube products totaled 257,728 mt, up 59.9 percent from November; and import permits for semi-finished products totaled 614,549 mt, up 402.0 percent from November.
The largest sources of steel import permit applications in December were Brazil (527,073 mt), Canada (427,613 mt), Mexico (226,665 mt), Korea (217,636 mt), and Germany (63,786 mt).