Steel Products Prices North America
May 9, 2014
Apparent Supply of Sheet and Strip Products through March 2014
Written by Peter Wright
Apparent supply is defined as domestic mill shipments to domestic locations plus imports. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce.
The three month moving average of the total tonnage of sheet and strip supply in the 1st quarter was 4,603,548 tons, up from 4,426,649 tons per month in Q4 2013, an increase of 4.0 percent. Compared to Q1 2013 and Q1 2012 supply was higher by 5.2 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. Table 1 shows the performance by product over three, twelve and twenty four month periods. The only products having negative growth in Q1 14 / Q4 13 were electro-galvanized and other metallic coated (mainly Galvalume.) Year over year hot band grew by 5.7 percent, cold rolled by 2.9 percent and HGD by 7.2 percent.
