Flat Rolled Imports by District of Entry and Source Nation, March 2019

Premium members will find reports on our website that break down the import tonnage through March into the port of entry and country of origin in metric tons. Products analyzed in this way are HRC, CRC, HDG sheet, OMC sheet, CTL plate and coiled plate. This data set is large; therefore, we will make no attempt to provide a commentary. Each reader’s interest will be different and he or she simply needs to select one of the six products, then find the nearest port or ports of entry to see how much came into their locality each month and from where. Monthly data is provided back to January 2017. It is clear from these detailed reports and from our companion reports by region that the change in tonnage entering a particular district in many (or most) cases is completely different from the change in volume at the national level.

Here are some examples to illustrate why this information can be actionable: Total CTL plate imports through March year to date were up by 8 percent year over year. New Orleans was up by 541 percent. In the first six months of 2018, CTL plate imports into New Orleans were minimal, then came roaring back in July of last year, mostly from South Korea. At the other extreme, the tonnage through Laredo was down by 71 percent year to date. Other metallic coated (mainly Galvalume) imports were down by 12 percent year over year through March, but Houston was down by 40 percent and Philadelphia was up by 125 percent. The discrepancy between the change at the national and local levels 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 is a small part of the detailed analysis of the HDG sheet tonnage. The bar graph shows the tonnage that entered the top 10 districts through March year to date for 2018 and 2019 ranked by 2019 tonnage. These 10 districts accounted for 87.6 percent of the HDG total in 2019 YTD. Detroit had by far the most volume in 2019 through March and was down by 13 percent compared to 2018. Canada supplied almost all of the HGD tonnage into Detroit in 2019.

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 national level 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 steels 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.