Steel Products Prices North America
August 9, 2013
Sheet & Plate Imports Moving Lower - Long Products Moving Higher
Written by John Packard
Imports of semi finished, and hot worked steel imports through July 2013
Imports of the combined tonnage of billets, blooms and slabs have been trending down for 12 months as have also the combined imports plate and sheet. Total long products have been trending up for all of 2013. These conclusions are based on a three month moving average and include July license data, June preliminary and May final data, (Fig 1). We believe it is valid to combine preliminary and license data in this way because both have a good track record of closely approximating the final data and at this macro level of analysis we are concerned more with direction that we are with absolutely accurate numbers.
