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Bucking the trend for most of the month of April, import licenses for the full month declined 5.3% to 2.78 million tonnes (mt) from March’s 2.95 mt, according to the Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) licensing program.

But the decline is a bit misleading, as semi-finished steel import licenses declined 22.8%, after rising five straight months and doubling levels seen in October 2011. Semi shipments are “lumpy” so a one-month drop is not meaningful. What matters more is that finished steel imports look set to hit another post-recession high, up some 52% from the bottom in December. The uptick in finished steel licenses is being driven by a 32.6% increase in sheet tonnage, the highest level since May 2007, while imports of hot-rolled bars are set to rise some 23.7% to the highest level since October 2008.

Chinese import licenses jumped 42.3% in April to the highest level since March 2009 (just before the OCTG trade case).

Our full report is available to subscribers and provides further thoughts on April import licenses as well as our outlook for the coming months and implications for steel equities.

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