Steel Products Prices North America
July 17, 2014
July Steel License Data Suggests Import Trend Not Slowing
Written by John Packard
Based on a quick analysis of the just released July steel import license data (through the 15th of July) we see the foreign steel imports continuing at very high rates. The import data suggests we will see July imports at levels similar to that of May and June. May had the highest level of imports since 2008 at 4,033,351 net tons. Import license data suggests June will be approximately 3.7 million net tons. We expect when the final numbers are counted that July foreign steel imports will come in around 3.5-4.0 million net tons.
The steel mills themselves continue to be the largest importing segment as Semi-Finished steels (mostly slabs) continue to be a large percentage of the total imports. Our analysis is suggesting that approximately 19 percent of all imports in July will be semi-finished products. This is actually a little lower than the 26.7 percent we saw in May when slightly more than 1 million net tons of semi-finished steels were imported out of the 4,033,251 net tons which arrived at U.S. ports during the month.
