[All tonnages mentioned in this news article are net tons]. Based on the Commerce Department’s most recent Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) data, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) reported today that steel import permit applications for the month of January totaled 2.12Mt. This was a 0.1% decrease from the 2.128Mt (permit tons) recorded in December and a 42.4% increase from the December preliminary imports total of 1.49Mt. Import permit tonnage for finished steel in January was 1.2Mt, down 10.3% from the preliminary imports total of 1.3Mt in December. The estimated finished steel import market share in January was 16%.

Finished steel imports with large increases in January permits versus the December preliminary imports include heavy structural shapes (up 105%), reinforcing bars (up 82%), light shapes bars (up 23%) and structural pipe and tubing (up 15%).

In January, the largest finished steel import permit applications for offshore countries were for South Korea (125kt, down 48%), Turkey (75kt, up 451%), Japan (52kt, down 11%), Brazil (40kt, down 18%) and Taiwan (30kt, down 23%).