Steel Mills
March 17, 2015
U.S. Service Center Flat Rolled Inventories at 2.9 Months
Written by John Packard
According to data just released by the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI), U.S. service centers shipped 3,332,300 tons of all steel products during the month of February 2015. The daily shipment rate was 166,600 tons per day, down 1.4 percent over February 2014 when the daily shipment rate was 169,000 tons. In comparison to the previous month, February daily shipments were down 0.7 percent from the 167,800 ton rate in January. Note that there were 20 shipping days in both February 2015 and February 2014, while January 2015 had 21. Total steel shipments were down 1.4 percent year over year.
Total steel inventories shrunk slightly from 9,961,100 tons reported at the end of January to 9,875,200 tons as of the end of February. Inventories were up 15.1 percent over the prior February. The number of months on hand stood at 3.0 months on a non-adjusted basis, this is up from 2.8 months reported at the end of January. In February 2014 the months on hand stood at 2.5 months.
