Based on reported import licenses and as predicted in my earlier post, US long products imports dropped 31% to 188,000 short tons in September compared to 272,000 tons of licenses in August. This can be compared to long products imports of 136,000 tons in September 2009, 233,000 tons in September 2008 and 312,000 tons in September 2007. I will add actual August figures to the spreadsheet below as soon as they are available.
The fall in September imports was driven by rebar imports which fell by 41,000 tons, caused mainly by a 34,000 ton drop in Turkish rebar imports. Wire rod imports also dropped significantly by 27,000 tons due to lower imports from countries including Turkey, Mexico and Japan.
Long products import licenses reported up to October 14th were 88,000 tons which indicates that full-month October imports should be slightly higher than September imports.
We haven’t had time to study the data yet, but worldsteel published an updated Short Term Apparent Steel Use forecast a couple of days ago. At first glance it looks like demand this year is going to be higher than initially forecast in April 2010, while 2011 is set to grow at the same rate as published in April but from a higher base so achieving higher demand at 1,340MT (instead of 1,306MT). The country detail of the forecast has yet to be released, but there are regional summaries and China is shown separately. The October bulletin data and the April 2010 detail (on the second tab) are in the Nerds spreadsheet below.
Worldsteel published the global steel production figures for August today. They confirm the gentle slowing of steel production with output declining marginally by 1% July to August. If production stays flat for the remainder of the year, it could still be a record production year. The thing to watch however, (and only if you’re careful with the number because the data can be very unreliable), is global capacity utilization running about 73% down from 74% the month before. The global number is only a shade higher than the current run rate of the US industry which this week was about 70%. Are we settling into some type of global equilibrium? If you have data for utilization in other countries or regions, please share in the comments section. Here’s the Nerds spreadsheet:
Based on reported import licenses, US long products imports rose 11% to 272,000 short tons in August compared to 244,000 tons of licenses in July. This can be compared to long products imports of 125,000 tons in August 2009, 232,000 tons in August 2008, and 347,000 tons in August 2007. I will add actual July figures to the spreadsheet below as soon as they are available.
The rise in August imports was driven by rebar, where license applications rose 24,000 tons compared to July due to higher applications from Mexico and Turkey.
Import licenses for September reported up to September 14th were 75,000 tons which indicates that full-month September imports should be significantly lower than August’s.
Based on reported import licenses, US flat products imports dropped 20% from 600,000 short tons in July to 480,000 tons in August. This can be compared to 353,000 tons of flat products imports in August 2009.
Imports of every product declined but the largest drop came from hot roll which fell by 65,000 tons between July and August, driven mainly by lower imports from Australia and India.
It’s too early in the month to accurately forecast full-month September imports, but I will update the spreadsheet below with the newest September 16th data next week.
World crude steel production was down a little over 3% in July after similar falls in May and June. I’m afraid we’re only likely to know what this means as the full context of 2010 develops unless someone wants to share what they think it all means now. I’m withholding judgment. It was a general decline with no region significantly deviating from the overall trend including China.
worldsteel, which published the data, estimates that global crude steel capacity utilization was just over 75% in July down from 80% in June. That means crude steel production capacity is nudging 1.8Bn tonnes. All the data is below.
