Flat rolled steel imports on the increase
Total rolled steel imports increased by 10.8 percent in the three months through August compared to the three months through May. Sheet product imports rose by 14.3 percent on the same basis, according to final license data for August reported by the U.S. Commerce Department on Aug. 6.
The data is reported within the Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) system. An explanation of the methodology used to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece, together with notes describing SIMA. All volumes are reported in short tons.
The three-month moving average (3MMA) of rolled product imports in August was the highest since May 2015. The August increase was all in flat rolled. Semis and long products declined. Total rolled product licensed imports in the single month of August were 2,532,496 tons with a 3MMA of 2,727,510 tons. We prefer not to dwell on single-month results because of the extreme variability that can occur in individual products. In the comments below, we use three-month moving averages to give what we believe is the most accurate picture.
Figure 1 shows the 3MMA through August of licensed tons of semi-finished, flat and long products since January 2004.
Figure 2 shows the 3MMA trend of sheet and strip product imports since January 2004. The total of these products was up by 14.3 percent in three months through August compared to three months through May and up by 10.6 percent year over year
Table 1 provides an analysis of major product groups and of sheet products in detail. It compares the average monthly import tonnage in the three months through August 2017 with both three months through May (3M/3M) and the three months through August 2016 (Y/Y).
There were big differences between the individual sheet products compared to last year, ranging from HRC, down by 12.7 percent, to other metallic coated, up by 32.2 percent. Table 2 shows the same analysis for long products. The total tonnage of long product imports was down by 39,890 tons per month Y/Y. On a 3M/3M basis, the total volume of long products declined by 0.7 percent.
Figure 3 shows the import market share of sheet and long products through June, which is the latest data available. The import market share of sheet products peaked at 24.3 percent in March 2015. The June 2017 level was 21.3 percent. Long product import market share has been considerably higher than for sheet products since early 2015 and in June was 28.7 percent, the highest since May 2015.
Figures 4 through 7 show U.S. mill shipments to domestic locations, imports and import market share for the four major sheet products. Note that the righthand import share axes are the same to give true comparability. HRC has the lowest import share followed by HDG, CRC and OMC, which is by far the highest.