Sheet and Plate Imports by District of Entry and Source-November 2017

Here are some recent examples to illustrate why this information can be actionable: Total cold rolled imports increased by 27 percent year-to-date through November, but Philadelphia was up by 170 percent and Laredo was down by 18 percent. Total HDG imports increased by 15 percent in the first 11 months of 2017, but Savannah was up by 48 percent and Boston was down by 29 percent. The discrepancy between the change in the national total and the individual regions is why we think it’s important for both market understanding and negotiating position to know what’s going on in your own backyard.

The table included here (click to enlarge) is a small part of the detailed analysis of HDG tonnage. The bar graph shows the tonnage that entered the top 10 districts in year-to-date November for 2016 and 2017 ranked by 2017 tonnage. These 10 districts account for 88.0 percent of the grand total in 2017. Detroit received the most tonnage through November 2017 followed by Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

The data in these detailed reports is compiled from tariff and trade data published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission. Our other import reports are sourced from U.S. Department of Commerce, Enforcement and Compliance, aka the Steel Import Monitoring System. In the development of these reports by district and source country, we have discovered that the SIMA data for HRC and CRC contains some high-alloy steel such as stainless and tool steel, which have been misclassified at the ports. These alloy steels are not included in our detailed reports, which results in a small discrepancy between the two data sets, for CRC in particular and for HRC to a lesser degree.