Over the first 16 weeks of 2017, US steel production averaged 1,732,000 tons per week at an average capacity utilization rate of 73.3%. The most recent four week capacity utilization rate was 73.2%.  This was 1.8% higher than the same period in 2016.

This data is from the Federal Reserve and is seasonally adjusted. The index is based on the May 2012 level being defined as 100.

For the first two months of 2017, US scrap exports came in at 2,244,000 tonnes up 28.6% year on year. For the year 2016, bulk US scrap exports totaled 13,815,000 tonnes, up by 8.3% compared to the year 2015.

China Metals Weekly (CMW), reported April 13^th that China exported 7.56 million tonnes (Mt) of steel products in March, an increase of 1.81 Mt over February. The good news is that this amount was down by 24.2% year on year (y/y).

The US is by far the largest exporter of beams to Canada, accounting for 54.1% of total imports for January.  The US sent 32,117 tons of beams north, up 44.6% from January 2016. Total beam imports for the month were 59,336 tons, down 7.6% year on year

Beam imports to the US in January were down 40.4% year on year (y/y), 40,987 in 2017 vs 68,799 in 2016. Conversely if we compare 2016 volume (471,430 tons) to 2015 (391,325 tons), we see that year on year beam import volume ramped up 20.4%.