Beam licenses thus far in May total 29,142 tons, down 52.7% from last year’s 61,579 tons. Year to date (YTD), there have been a total of 194,775 tons of Beam license requests, down 53,312 tons or -21.5% from YTD 2016.

Rebar licenses thus far in May total 56,450 tons, down 64.5% from last month’s 159,020 tons. Year to date (YTD), there have been a total of 762,663 tons of rebar license requests, down 63,500 tons or 7.7% from YTD 2016.

For the week ending May 20^th, US raw steel production totaled 1.741 million tons. Capacity utilization (CU), for the week was 74.7%. On a four week moving average basis, production was 1,739 M at 74.4% CU.

The first quarter total US scrap exports came in at 3,152,000 tonnes, up 11.0% year on year (y/y). Once again Turkey was the largest importer, bringing in 542,700 tonnes in the first quarter, an 11.8% decrease y/y.

Prices fell for three of the five long product groups according to the May 10^th China Metals Weekly (CMW) newsletter. Wire rod priced edged down 2.5% week on week (w/w) and was off 6.7% month on month (m/m).

For the first 18 weeks of 2017, US steel production averaged 1.730 million (M), tons per week at an average capacity utilization rate of 73.4%.