MSCI: February Shipments Up from Last Year in U.S.

February service center shipments of carbon flat roll, plate, and pipe and tube were all up compared with the same month last year, but down compared with the prior month, according to the Metals Service Center Institute’s February Metals Activity Report. It’s a common seasonal pattern for shipments to start the year strong in January and ease a bit in February.

U.S. service centers shipped 3.289 million tons of steel products in February, an increase of 4.7 percent over February 2017, but a decrease of 5.6 percent from January. U.S. service center inventories at the end of February totaled 7.740 million tons or 2.4 months on hand. That’s a 5.4 percent increase from the 7.342 million tons in inventory, and up slightly from 2.3 months on hand, in February last year. Tons shipped per day in February totaled 164,400, up from 158,400 in January and 156,300 in February 2017.