US steel imports increase in September

US steel imports increase in September

The US government released steel preliminary import figures for the month of September 2003. Based on this data, it is seen that US imports rose by 8.7% from the previous month figures. A total of 1.7 million metric tons of steel was imported during the month of September into the US. This tonnage includes 1.3 million metric tons of finished steel with a 5.1% increase. As per the 2003 year-to-date results, 15 million metric tons of steel including 12 million metric tons of finished steel was imported into the country with a decrease of 26.9% and 19.9% respectively, over the last year same period results. From August to September, the change in steel imports are due to increase seen in blooms, billets, slabs and wire rods, basically from Mexico, Turkey, Russia and Canada. The Jan-Aug 2003 final figures revealed that US imported 14.3 million metric tons of steel which was decreased by 4.6 million metric tons from the 18.8 million metric tons recorded in the same period last year. The largest commodity decreases were in blooms, billets, slabs and wire rods. Furthermore, the largest country decreases were in Brazil, Russia, Japan and Canada. According to the data, Turkey has exported 127'913 metric tons of finished steel products to the US in September. This quantity was 47.4% lower compared to the same period last year. Major import quantities of finished steel into US appear to be coming from Canada, EU, Turkey, Mexico and Korea.