Service Center Intake, Shipments and Inventory for March 2014

Total service center carbon steel shipments in March rose by 283,700 tons to 3.515 million tons, more than making up for the February decline. Shipping days increased from 20 in February to 21 in March. Tons per day (t/d) shipments rose from 161,600 tons in February to 167,400 in March, both on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Intake in March was 152,750 t/d leading to a daily deficit of 14,700 tons. Months on hand declined from 2.51 to 2.22.

Table 1 shows the performance by product in March compared to the same month in previous years. Shipments of all products on a t/d basis were up by 2.4 percent from March last year but this performance did not extend to long products. Both bar and structural t/d shipments were down from last year. Sheet products were up by 3.3 percent and plate by 2.8 percent. Pipe and tube about broke even with a y/y increase of 0.3 percent. The t/d shipments of all products were down from March 2011. In March intake followed the same pattern as shipments which is not always the case. Only structurals had an intake surplus in March. Compared to the end of March, last year inventories were down by 3.4 percent in total, only structurals experienced an increase. Except for structurals in 2014, inventories have been down across the board for two years.