Steel Products Prices North America
June 16, 2015
Import License Data Trending Lower for June
Written by John Packard
We are starting to see signs that the June import numbers could be significantly below those of April and May which were both at 3.5 million net tons. The daily import license rate for June is at 109,662 tons per day and if the actual imports were to come in at that rate the month would be around 3.2 million tons.
The trend, and our readers must understand that we are talking specifically about the trend now and not actual imports due to the volatility one can get from import license data alone, is for oil country tubular goods (OCTG) to be much lower than both their 3 month and 12 month moving averages (see table below). We are also seeing reductions in semi-finished (mostly slabs which go to the domestic steel mills for further rolling) which also could come in much lower than their 3 and 12 month moving averages.
