According to recent data released by the American Iron and Steel Institute, the total number of US steel import license applications in August was around 2.9 million short tons, down by 8% from July. Among them, the application for import of finished steel products was 1.9 million short tons, down by 11% from the previous month.

In the first eight months, imports of steel and finished steel products were respectively 23.8 million short tons and 18.1 million short tons, down by 10% and 11.4% year-on-year respectively. In August, the market share of imported finished steel products was 21%, and the cumulative market share from January to August was 24%.

In August, the number of finished steel products which increased significantly were steel wire (a month-on-month increase of 74%), the fixed-size steel plate (a month-on-month increase of 29%) and the drawn wire (a month-on-month increase of 12%).

The ranking of cumulative application of finished steel import licenses from January to August was as follows: South Korea (2.1 million short tons, down by 20% year on year); Japan (980,000 short tons, down by 8% year on year); Turkey (885,000 short tons, down by 52% year on year).