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

Licensed data for February was updated on March 3rd through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. Steel Market Update 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 February licensed data, January preliminary and December final data. We recognize that the license data is subject to revisions but believe that by combining it with earlier months 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 that the month in which the tonnage arrives is often not the same month in which the license was recorded. In 2014 we completed a full 12 months of investigations in which we examined the relationship between licensed tonnage and month of arrival. The result was that for the full year the reported licensed tonnage of all carbon and low alloy products was 2.3 percent less than actually receipts, close enough we believe to confidently include licensed data in this current update. Total rolled product licensed imports in the month of February were 2,856,186 short tons which was over 500,000 tons higher than February last year but down by 442,000 tons from January.