Based on reported import licenses, US flat products imports rose 31% from 542,000 short tons in December to 708,000 tons in January. In comparison, January flat products imports in 2011 were 534,000 tons.
Cut plate, hot rolled and and cold rolled imports each rose by just over 50,000 tons while hot dip galvanized imports rose by 13,000 tons. Cut plate imports rose from many countries, but particularly from Russia, and hot rolled imports rose significantly from Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan. Cold rolled imports showed a big increase from Brazil.
February flat products import licenses reported up to February 22nd were 556,000 tons, which means that full-month February imports will be higher than January’s, and hot rolled imports in particular look like they will rise.
More earnings have been reported since my last post. See links to the latest earnings releases below.
As usual, Ternium posted strong results. The company’s full year 2011 EBITDA per ton was $172, by far the highest among the companies we track in the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet. Gerdau and Essar Algoma also generated EBITDA per ton above $100 in 2011 – Gerdau posted $130 for the year while Essar Algoma came in at $101.
Based on reported import licenses and after a 56% rise in December, US long products imports rose 83% from 180,000 short tons in December to 331,000 tons in January. January imports in 2011 were 221,000 tons, in 2010 166,000 tons, in 2009 264,000 tons, and in 2008 385,000 tons.
A 95,000-ton rise in rebar imports drove the overall climb, with Turkey accounting for almost all of this increase. Imports of all other long products categories declined except for wire rod imports which declined by 2%.
February import licenses reported up to February 14th were 202,000 tons which is likely to mean that full-month February imports will be significantly higher than January’s.
ArcelorMittal released Q4 and full year 2011 financial results this week. The English version of the press release can be found here. EBITDA per ton in Q4 was $75, the highest number recorded so far among the companies we track in the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet. For the full year, ArcelorMittal generated EBITDA of $107 per ton, higher than the level achieved in the last two years but only half the level achieved at the peak in 2008.
Sorry for my tardiness but Q4 results have started being released. Below are links to earnings announcements for the first four North American steel companies to release Q4 earnings.
EBITDA per ton dropped in Q4 relative to Q3 but all four companies generated positive EBITDA. Nucor led the pack in with EBITDA per ton of $72, followed by Steel Dynamics at $46, AK Steel at $12, and US Steel at $2 per ton. The AK number for Q4 excludes a $268 million non-cash pension corridor charge. In the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet, we try to exclude large non-cash special charges, since the objective of the spreadsheet is to provide our blog readers with a quick comparison of quarterly cash flow generation per ton for the companies we cover.
worldsteel published December 2011 and full-year 2011 world crude steel production on Monday.
Looking at the monthly results, December production increased 1.5% over November to 117 million metric tonnes, though daily production declined 1.8%. China, the US, Russia and Turkey each showed significantly higher production while France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan all showed declines.
On a yearly basis, world crude production rose 6.8% to 1,527 million tonnes. 60% of this rise (or 58 million tonnes) can be attributed to China. Other countries that increased production strongly in 2011 were South Korea, India, the U.S., Turkey, Taiwan and Italy.
As usual, all the data for 2011 (and for a number of prior years) is shared in the Nerds spreadsheet below.
