Steel Products Prices North America
August 14, 2014
Early August Import License Data Pointing Toward Another Big Month
Written by John Packard
Early indications, based on steel import license data, are suggesting August steel imports will once again exceed 3.5 million net tons and could go as high as 4.0 million tons. The high so far this year was May at 4.033 million net tons. May 2014 was also the highest import level seen since prior to the beginning of the Great Recession.
At the moment the biggest one month surge is pointing to slab imports which are domestic mill driven. Between slab imports, hot rolled coil and some full hard cold rolled coils, the domestic mills account for 25 percent or more of the total steel imports.
