Steel Products Prices North America

2013 Shipments of Sheet and Strip Products

Written by Peter Wright

February 11, 2014

Shipments of sheet and strip products in 2013 as a whole were 49,608,408 tons, a decrease of 1.7 percent from the total for 2012. Shipments in Q4 averaged 4,100,162 tons / month, a decrease of 2 percent from Q3 but an increase of 3.7 percent from Q4 last year.

Comparing YTD shipments for 2013 to 2012 for individual products, hot band was up by 1.1 percent, other products ranged from electro galvanized up by 1.7 percent to cold rolled down by 4.7 percent (Table 1).

Q4 2013 shipments for sheet and strip products in total was up by 3.7 percent from Q4 2012, with all products except hot band showing an improvement. Figure 1 shows a six year trend for hot rolled, cold rolled and HDG. Following the post recession recovery, hot rolled has been little changed for two years. Shipments of hot dipped galvanized sheet and strip declined strongly in Q2 through Q4 2012 but made up a third of that loss in 2013. Cold rolled shipments have shown little direction for over 12 months. This analysis is based on shipments to domestic locations plus exports and uses the AISI AIS10 monthly report and Commerce Department trade data.

Peter Wright

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