Steel Mills
September 17, 2015
Distributor Flat Rolled Inventories Up as August Shipments Falter
Written by John Packard
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released August distributor shipment and inventory data on Wednesday of this week. Total steel inventories remained essentially unchanged in August compared to July as the daily shipping rate declined by 3.8 percent. The biggest declines in shipments were attributed to carbon plate (-14.8 percent), structurals (-3.9 percent) and carbon shapes (-3.9 percent). Flat rolled products were actually down the least of all the steel products at -2.2 percent.
Total steel inventories (all products) were reported as being 9,181,900 tons. This represents an increase of 1.9 percent compared to one year ago. Inventories increase to 2.8 months supply well above the 10 year average of 2.4 months and up from the 2.7 months reported in July.
