The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported Wednesday that based on the US Department of Commerce's most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, steel import permit applications for the month of January totaled 2.6 million net tons (nt). This was an 8 percent increase from the 2.4 million permit tons recorded in December and up 12 percent from the December preliminary imports total of 2.3 million nt. Import permit tonnage for finished steel in January was 2.12 million nt, up 31 percent from the preliminary imports total of 1.6 million nt in December. January 2013 total and finished steel import permit tons would annualize at 31.5 million nt and 26 million nt, down 5 percent and up 1 percent, respectively, versus the 33.3 million nt and 25.7 million nt imported in 2012. The estimated finished steel import market share in January was 24 percent.
Finished steel imports with large increases in January permits versus the December preliminary include reinforcing bars (up 143 percent); heavy structural shapes (up 136 percent); sheets and strip galvanized electrolytic (up 103 percent); oil country goods (up 89 percent) and sheets and strip galvanized hot dipped (up 66 percent).
In January, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (368,000 nt and up 174 percent from December); China (184,000 nt and up 12 percent); Turkey (160,000 nt and up 227 percent); Japan (137,000 nt and up 71 percent) and Germany (71,000 nt and down 23 percent).