US finished steel imports decreased by 18% in 5 months

Based on final data, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported that the United States imported a total of 2,062,000 tonnes of steel in May 2019, including 1,853,000 tonnes of finished steel (up 38.2% and 9.3%, respectively). with April, respectively). final data). In the first five months of 2019, total and final steel imports amounted to 13,584,000 and 9,953,000 net tonnes, up 11.7% and 18.1%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2018. The total annual and finished steel imports in 2019 will be 32.6% and 23.9%. million tons, which is 3.3% and 7.0%, respectively, compared to 2018. The market share of finished steel imports in May was approximately 19%, and in the first five months of 2019 - 21%.

The main finished steel products with a significant increase in imports in May compared to April were sheets and strips of all other metal coatings (up to 100%), heavy structural forms (up to 98%), reinforcing bars (up to 56%), hot-rolled bars (up to 17 %) and standard pipe (up to 15%). The main end product with a significant increase over the same period in 2018 over the same period last year was pipeline pipe (up 11%).

In May, the largest volumes of finished steel imports from offshore were from South Korea (290,000 tons, up 5% over April), Japan (124,000 tons, a 22% decrease), Taiwan (81,000 tons, an increase of 13 %), Germany (64,000 tons, down 56%) and Vietnam (61,000 tons, down 23%). In the first five months of 2019, the largest offshore suppliers were South Korea (1,287,000 tons, a decrease of 16% compared to the same period in 2018), Japan (611,000 tons, unchanged), Germany (517,000 tons, a decrease of 6%), Taiwan (436,000 tons, down 7%) and Vietnam (368,000 tons, down 5%). Below are graphs of the estimated market share of steel imports in recent months and imports of finished steel from offshore locations by country.