U.S. Beam Import Licenses
Beam licenses year to date (YTD), through September 14th totaled 423,658 tons, down 5.0% from last year’s YTD 446,138 tons. September to date license requests were for 18,199 tons, down substantially from the YTD average through August of 50,682 tons. Wide flange beams accounted for 84% and standard I beams make up the remaining 16%.
Figure 1 shows total Beam licenses through September for both 2016 and 2017 as reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System (SIMA).
Figure 2 charts the YTD total by country for 2016 and 2017. South Korea’s license requests YTD through September totaled 106,028 tons down 9,062 tons YTD y/y, (-8.0%). South Korea’s September month to date license requests stood at 14,738, down 66.4% month on month, (m/m) but 11.2% higher than its YTD average through August of 13,253 tons. South Korea’s license requests month to date account for 81.0% of total license demand.
Luxembourg’s license requests YTD were 105,413, up 16,460 tons YTD y/y, (+18.5%). Its month to date license total was 2,906 tons, down 73.5% m/m and down 78.0% from its YTD average through August 13,177 tons.
The remainder of the countries only requested a combined 555 tons though September 14th.
Year to date Spain exported 74,221 tons, down 14.2% from its YTD 2016 level of 86,515 tons. September license requests thus far were for just 50 tons. The United Kingdom YTD licenses total was 31,699 tons, up 87.6% y/y, from YTD 2016 total of 16,893 tons. License requests were zero though September 14th. Mexico YTD total license requests total 18,921, down 39.7% from its 31,359 tons in 2016. September’s license requests were for just 317 tons. The United Arab Emirates YTD license total was 16,014 tons, up 9.8% y/y from 2016 YTD total of 14,590 tons. The United Arab Emirates licensed zero tons this far in September. Germany’s YTD total stands at 12,858 tons, down 27.5% from its 2016 YTD total of 17,741 tons. Germany’s September’s to date licenses were for just 43 tons. Canada’s total license requests YTD were for 16,256 tons, up 3.5% YTD y/y. September license requests month to date from Canada were for only 100 tons. So far in 2017 Russia has only licensed 251 tons compared to 31,323 tons for the first nine months of 2016. Month to date, Russia has not licensed any tons for September.
Rounding out the top 10 beam exporting countries was Taiwan with a YTD total of 14,626 tons up 6.0%, from last year’s 13,797 tons. Taiwan license for September to date was for zero tons
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