Flat Rolled Steel Service Center Inventories: Apparent Excess/Deficit Report & Forecast

Steel Market Update last Apparent Excess/Deficit forecast for flat rolled steel shipments and inventories called for shipments in January to exceed 2014 levels by 2 percent.  Total flat rolled shipments for the month of January 2015 were projected by us to be 2,415,000 tons. In actuality, shipment levels were 1.6 percent higher than January 2014 for a total of 2,295,500 tons according to the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) data released earlier this week.

Where we missed our forecast was regarding receipts of flat rolled and total flat rolled inventories at the end of the month of January. Our original forecast for January believed with foreign imports totaling close to 4.4 million net tons during the month of January (all products), almost 800,000 tons more than December, that we would see an increase in flat rolled inventories at the distributors.