Steel Products Prices North America
June 10, 2014
Tidal Wave of Imports Continues: South Korea Leaps Over Canada as #1 Exporting Country
Written by Brett Linton
We are now one-third of the way through the month of June, far enough along to begin doing our analysis of the US Department of Commerce license data on imports. The data is showing us that the surge of imports grew during the month of May and will continue into the month of June. We did a special analysis of South Korean oil country tubular exports which flooded the U.S. market in May and appear poised to do the same in June. Korea is slated to be the biggest exporting country of steel goods to the United States during the month of May behind Canada. Total South Korean exports are about to exceed 500,000 net tons for the month of May.
First, let’s take a look at the May import numbers for all steel products which we now believe will meet or exceed 4.0 million net tons. The latest license data has the number at 4,091,849 net tons as of today (June 10th).
