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 November 2020 totaled 1,231,533 mt. This was a 10.3 percent decrease from the 1,372,336 mt in final census data totals recorded in October and a 13.6 percent decrease from the 1,425,173 mt in census data totals recorded in November 2019.
In November, import permits for flat steel products totaled 619,709 mt, up 4.5 percent from October’s census data; import permits for long steel products totaled 277,776 mt, down 11.8 percent from October; import permits for pipe and tube products totaled 166,546 mt, down 10.4 percent from October; and import permits for semi-finished products totaled 63,943 mt, down 70.6 percent from October.
The largest sources of steel import permit applications in November were Canada (369,977 mt), Mexico (168,021 mt), Korea (132,801 mt), Netherlands (74,436 mt), and Germany (60,564 mt).