March Monthly Steel Fact Sheet

The preliminary data released today show that overall steel imports in March 2008 increased 1.2 percent from February 2008 .  The marginal change in March’s total amount of steel imports was due to an decrease in some goods, such as blooms billets and slabs (-19%) and hot rolled sheet (-24%) and an increase in other goods such as oil country goods (48%) and plates in coils (32%). There was a notable 69% increase in standard pipe. Similarly, stainless imports increased 1.11% resulting from mixed increases and decreases in individual stainless products. February 2008 imports of steel mill products were down 17.4 percent compared to February 2007.