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 October 2020 totaled 1,416,223 mt. This was a 23.6 percent increase from the 1,145,779 mt in final census data totals recorded in September but a 29.3 percent decrease from the 2,002,664 mt in census data totals recorded in October 2019.
In October, import permits for flat steel products totaled 570,023 mt, down 9.4 percent from September’s census data; import permits for long steel products totaled 288,471 mt, up 28.2 percent from September; import permits for pipe and tube products totaled 173,255 mt, up 2.4 percent from September; and import permits for semi-finished products totaled 294,403 mt, up 282.2 percent from September.
The largest sources of steel import permit applications in October were Canada (441,279 mt), Mexico (252,813 mt), Brazil (171,409 mt), Korea (126,328 mt), and Japan (64,656 mt).