U.S. Preliminary Steel Imports Increase 16% in January

Wednesday, Feb 24, 2010

Based on preliminary Census Bureau data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported today that the U.S. imported a total of 1,634,000 net tons (NT) of steel in January, including

1,257,000 NT of finished steel (up 16% and 11%, respectively, vs. December final data).  Annualized total and finished steel imports in 2010 would be 19.6 and 15.1 million NT, respectively, up 21% and 6% vs. 2009.   Total imports were highest monthly amount since January 2009.  Finished imports recorded their highest amount since March of 2009.    Finished steel import market share was an estimated 18% in January, which is around 3 percentage points higher than in August 2009.

Key finished steel products with increases in January 2010 compared to December include oil country goods (103%), heavy structural shapes (40%), plates in coils (30%) and sheets & strip hot dipped galvanized (26%).

In January, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (150,000 NT, up 45%), Japan (78,000 NT, down 24%), China (66,000 NT, up 40%), Italy (48,000 NT, down 2%) and Germany (37,000 NT, down 13%).   Below are charts on estimated steel import market share by month and finished steel imports by country.   

Source: AISI