Beam licenses through January 24^th totaled 12,128 tons, down 27,902 tons or 69.7% from last January’s total of 40,030 tons. Overall beam import licensed tons in 2017 were lower than in 2016. The 2016 total was 568,065 tons 26,934 tons or 4.7% less than the 541,131 ton level in 2017.

For the 12 months ending December 2017, U.S. mill shipments of long products increased by 5.9% year on year, (y/y). U.S. domestic consumption of long products increased by 1.6% over the same timeframe.

Worldsteel Association (WSA) reports that global crude steel production totaled 138.06 million tonnes (Mt) at a capacity utilization rate, (CUR) of 69.5% in December. Production was up by 1.51 Mt as the CUR was lower by 1.4 percentage points from November.

The total tonnage for the week ending January 20^th was 1,693 million tons, (Mt) at a capacity utilization rate of 72.6%. For the first three weeks of 2018, total tonnage output was 5,049 Mt, at a capacity utilization rate of 72.2%.

SBQ final imports to the U.S. were up 28.4% year to date (YTD), year on year (y/y), totaling 526,564 tons for the eleven months ending November 2017. November SBQ imports came in at tons, 48,610, 1.5% higher than the 47,869 ton YTD average volume.

Wire rod final imports to the U.S. were up 3.5% year to date (YTD), year on year (y/y), totaling 1,785,302 tons for the eleven months ending November 2017. November’s tonnage recorded 104,703 tons, 35.5% lower than the YTD average volume of 162,300 tons.