Flat, Long, and Semi-Finished Imports through January 2015

Licensed data for January was updated on February 3rd through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is published in our premium product.

The early look, the latest of which you are reading now, has been based on three month moving averages (3MMA) using January licensed data, December preliminary and November final data. We recognize that the license data is subject to revisions but believe that by combining it with earlier months data in this way gives a reasonably accurate assessment of volume trends by product as early as possible. The main issue with the license data is the month in which the tonnage arrives. We are currently investigating the relationship between licensed tonnage and month of arrival and will publish our summary of the accuracy of license data for the whole of 2014 in this newsletter next week. Total rolled product licensed imports in the month of January were 2,759,995 short tons which was over 800,000 tons higher than January last year but down by 52,000 tons from December.