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Finished Steel Imports Hold 24% of US Market
WASHINGTON -- The estimated U.S. market share of imported finished steel is 22% for August. For the first eight months of the year, imports account for 24%, says the American Iron and Steel Institute.
“While U.S. mills are operating at only a 75% utilization rate, offshore producers are sending cheap, subsidized finished steel imports into our market, which year-to-date, represent 24% market share,” said Thomas J. Gibson, AISI president and CEO. “On top of this, a slowdown in Chinese steel demand and global manufacturing activity generally is a cause of great concern here in the United States, where we have the most open market in the world, as this could result in even larger increases in import tonnage in the months to come. We urge the U.S. government to be ever vigilant for evidence of foreign unfair trade practices that could result in harm to America’s steel industry.”
Based on the Commerce Department’s most recent steel import monitoring and analysis data, steel import permit applications for August totaled 2.59 million net tons. This was an 8% decrease from the 2.82 million permit tons recorded in July, but only a 0.3% increase from the July preliminary imports total of 2.58 million tons.
Import permit tonnage for finished steel in August was tw million net tons, down 1% from the preliminary imports total of 2.03 million tons in July.
August total and finished steel import permit tons would annualize at 34.21 million net tons and 26.47 million net tons, up 20% and 21%, respectively, versus the 28,52 million and 21.84 million imported in 2011.
Finished steel imports with large increases in August permits versus the July preliminary finding include heavy structural shapes (up 66%), reinforcing bars (up 64%), cut lengths plates (up 28%), tin plate (up 27%), hot rolled bars (up 22%) and cold rolled sheets (up 18%).
Major products with significant year-to-date increases compared to the same period in 2011 include reinforcing bars (up 49%), line pipe (up 42%), cut lengths plates (up 38%), oil country goods (up 33%), sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 31%), sheets and strip all other metallic coatings (up 29%) and hot rolled bars (up 17%).
In August, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries came from South Korea (279,000 net tons, down 2% from July), China (158,000, up 36%), Japan (138,000, down 18%), Turkey (116,000, up 240%) and Germany (93,000, up 7%). Through the first eight months, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (2.45 million net tons, up 22% from the same period in 2011), Japan (1.31 million, up 32%) and China (1.08 million, up 29%).
AISI is composed of 25 affiliate members that are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. Its member companies represent over three-quarters of both U.S. and North American steel capacity.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.