Based on reported import licenses, flat products imports into the US declined 19% from 433,000 short tons in April to 351,000 tons in May. This compares to 816,000 tons of flat products imports in September 2008 when we started collecting the license data.
Cut plate, hot roll, cold roll, and hot dip galvanized imports all declined but most significantly cold roll imports dropped 43% to 63,000 tons and hot dip galvanized imports dropped 26% to 86,000 tons. Cold roll imports declined from Brazil, Belgium, Russia and Australia. Hot Dip galvanized imports declined from India, Mexico, and Australia but increased from Korea and China.
Licenses recorded up to June 16th were 127,000 tons which implies that full-month June imports will be lower than May’s.
Worldsteel published its world crude steel production report today showing a 21% year on year decline in production through May, but a 7.4% bounce sequentially from April. Of particular note is the vigor of Chinese production which at 46.4MT is just a shade lower than the record production of 46.9MT in June last year. Follow the link above for the full report. The data are included in the Nerds crude steel production spreadsheet below.
Based on reported import licenses, US long products imports rose 3% from 97,000 short tons in April to 100,000 tons in May. This can be compared to 242,000 tons of long products imports in May 2008.
The most significant changes by product category were a rise in rebar imports from 31,000 tons in April to 48,000 tons in May, and a decline in all other structural shapes imports from 11,000 tons in April to 6,000 tons in May. Licenses reported up to 16 June (42,000 tons) imply that June import levels will stay under 100,000 tons.
Chinese crude steel production climbed 7% from 43.4 million metric tonnes in April to 46.5 million tonnes in May. Net finished steel exports remained negative as finished exports declined from 1.41 million tonnes to 1.35 million tonnes and finished imports grew from 1.62 million tonnes to 1.65 million tonnes.
As a result, apparent finished steel consumption in China reached 44.9 million tonnes, its highest level ever recorded, compared to 41.9 million tonnes in April.
The World Steel Association published the latest global crude steel production data yesterday. It’s now in the Nerds crude steel production spreadsheet below. The data (which as mentioned previously) are often significantly revised in later bulletins show a 3% decline month to month from March to April and 24% decline year on year 2008 to 2009. Notable among the data – the European Union, about 10% of production, accounted for about 31% of the decline in April.
As predicted in an earlier post, US long products imports in April dropped to a new historical low. Based on reported import licenses, US long products imports dropped 45% from 168,000 short tons in March to 92,000 tons in April. About 74,000 tons of this decline come from a 73% reduction in rebar licenses compared to March actual imports, with a drop in Turkish license applications accounting for a major portion of the drop. Wire rod import license applications also dropped significantly by 24% to 28,000 tons.
You may have noticed from our spreadsheet that import licenses have not predicted actual imports very accurately in February and March. This was due to rebar licenses, which were much higher than actual imports in February and much lower in March. February licenses were high because they were revised downward by 28,000 tons after our mid-March data collection date. March licenses were low because Turkey imported about 80,000 tons of rebar but applied for only 48,000 tons of licenses. Feel free to comment if you can explain this.
