Steel Products Prices North America

Steel Imports by Port, Product & Country

May 15, 2014

Steel Market Update published our special data on March steel imports which are produced by product (slabs, plate in coil, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume), by port of entry and by the country of origin. The full data is available for review by our Premium Level subscribers. Below is a portion of the data collected regarding imports of semifinished steel (slabs) with the HTS Code beginning with 720712.

SMU customers can derive a significant amount of information from these Premium Level reports produced exclusively for Steel Market Update. For example, imports of foreign produced slabs has been on the rise. Many would like to know, where is the surge coming from and where is the material going?

Total slab imports for the month of March were 696,238 tons which represented a 50.4 percent increase over the 463,013 tons imported into the USA during March 2013 (SMU Note: semifinished imports on the US Department of Commerce site include billets and blooms as well as slabs).

The largest slab exporting countries were: Russia with 356,250 tons of which 229,796 tons went to the port of Philadelphia (NLMK USA & other mills), 57,906 tons went to Mobile (AM/NS Calvert), 33,987 tons went to Houston (JSW) and 34,560 tons went to the Columbia/Snake River port on the west coast (Evraz). Total Russian slabs shipped to the United States during the first 3 months 2014 was 950,508 tons.

The next largest supplier was Brazil with 98,104 tons going to Mobile (AM/NS Calvert), 62,141 tons went to Los Angeles (California Steel).

We also saw 53,880 tons go to the port of Philadelphia from the United Kingdom (England) and our market sources have advised us that these slabs were destined for AK Steel.

Japan shipped in 38,523 tons to the port of Los Angeles while India put 24,417 tons into the port of Houston (JSW). Mexico shipped 44,317 tons to Los Angeles (CSI) and 16,954 tons to Houston (JSW).

Canada shipped just over 1,000 tons of slabs across the border at Buffalo, NY.

We do not expect any interruption of supply from any of the foreign suppliers. However, world politics can change the playing field and we assume those domestic mills who are receiving Russian slabs are weighing the risks involved. It will be interesting to see if the tonnage coming out of Russia begins to shift to other nations in the coming months.

Premium Level members can find the imports by product, port and country spread sheets under the Analysis Tab (Import/Export = Imports by Port,Country). You need to be logged into the website in order to access the data.