Steel Products Prices North America
September 21, 2017
Pace of Foreign Steel Import Licenses Picks Up
Written by John Packard
Earlier this month, foreign steel imports for September were trending toward a 2.6-million-ton month based on import licenses through the first 12 days of the month. Over the past week, the pace for import license requests has picked up. This is most likely due to the impact of the two hurricanes: Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida. Based on the latest import license data, September is now trending toward a 3.0-million-ton month. The trend is modestly lower than our 12-month and 3-month moving averages. Yet, it is a bit of a disappointment as the steel industry is expecting foreign steel imports to drop dramatically due to the threat of the Section 232 investigation on steel from earlier this year. That threat has now been pushed out to maybe as late as 1Q next year.
One of the products gaining traction after a slow start are semi-finished steels, the bulk of which are slabs. All of the semi’s imported into the country are done so by domestic steel, plate and pipe producers. Companies like NLMK USA, JSW, California Steel, AM/NS Calvert, Acero Junction, etc.
