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.
Chinese crude steel production dropped 4% from 45.1 million metric tonnes in March to 43.4 million tonnes in April.
Finished steel exports continued their decline from 1.67 million tonnes in March to 1.41 million tonnes in April, a 16% drop. Finished steel imports rose to 1.62 million tonnes, resulting in net finished imports of 210,000 tonnes.
Finished steel production was 3% lower in April at 41.66 million tonnes.
Based on reported import licenses, flat products imports into the US declined 18% from 488,000 short tons in March to 402,000 tons in April. Cut plate imports dropped 19% to 30,000 tons, hot rolled imports declined 30% to 160,000 tons, and hot dip galvanized imports fell 16% to 102,000 tons. Only cold rolled imports increased, rising 9% to 109,000 tons, with Russia a major contributor to the rise.
Cut plate licenses declined significantly from Canada and Japan, while they climbed from Sweden and Germany. Hot roll import licenses dropped significantly from Canada, but also from Mexico and Finland. And finally, Australia, Canada and China were important contributors to the decline in hot dip galvanized imports.
Gerdau SA and Gerdau Ameristeel released Q1 2009 earnings recently. You can see Gerdau’s release here and Gerdau Ameristeel’s release here. Both companies had positive EBITDA per ton in the first quarter, $77 for Gerdau and $33 for Gerdau Ameristeel. Among the companies tracked on the Nerds of Steel earnings spreadsheet, about half have posted positive EBITDA per ton in Q1 2009 and half have posted negative EBITDA, with a couple still left to report.
