Steel Mills
June 16, 2015
Steel Service Center Shipments Weaker than Expected
Written by John Packard
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released distributor shipment and inventories for the month of May on Monday of this week. In the MSCI press release they reported, “U.S. shipments of steel products decreased substantially in May compared to a year ago….” They went on to report, “In May 2015, U.S. service center steel shipments decreased by 12.6% from May 2014. Steel product inventories increased 11.0% over May a year ago. At the current shipping rate, this represents 2.8 months of supply in inventory.”
U.S. service centers shipped 3,126,100 net tons of all steel products. The May tonnage level was the lowest for any month so far this year. Based on a 20 day shipping month and the daily shipping rate was 164,000 tons per day.
