Steel Mills
September 18, 2014
U.S. Service Center Flat Rolled Inventories Growing
Written by John Packard
The Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) released shipment and inventory data on the U.S. service centers this week. Total steel shipments of all steel products rose on a daily basis in August compared to July. The daily shipment rate was 173,000 net tons and shipments totaled 3,634,000 tons. The number of tons shipped was essentially unchanged from one year ago.
U.S. distributors’ inventories grew to 9,013,200 tons by the end of August. Inventories of all steel products were 13.5 percent higher than one year ago when service centers held 7,941,200 tons of steel on their floors. The number of months on hand rose to 2.5 months on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. This is up slightly from the 2.4 months reported one month ago. Last year, at the end of August, distributors held 2.2 months worth of inventories on their floors.
