Imports up and export down in North America during H1 2016

According to the estimates by Aluminium Association for the month of July 2016, “Index of Net New Orders of Aluminum Mill Products” dropped 9.9 per cent from the previous month. It reports a drop of 8.3 per cent in orders for flat roll products. Orders for extruded products declined 13.6 per cent and orders for redraw rod dropped 19.4 per cent. In YoY comparison to July 2015, orders dropped 2.5 per cent. On average, orders recorded by domestic producers through the first seven months of 2016 were up slightly over last year.

Contrary to the drop in domestic orders, aluminium imports of ingot, scrap and mill products into the U.S. and Canada (excluding cross-border trade) were about 816 million pounds in June 2016. This records a rise of about 62.0 per cent over the June 2015 imports of 503 million pounds. Scrap accounted for about 50.4 per cent of reported aluminium exports in June. Including scrap exports totalled 513 million pounds in June which is down 11.9 per cent from a year ago. Excluding scrap, exports were 255 million pounds, slightly up over last year.

Exports of scrap dropped 21.4 per cent YoY. Through H1 2016, total imports were up 18.8 per cent to 3,952 million pounds while exports were down 1.4 per cent to 3,005 million pounds. This again shows the significant part played by exports from China to US.

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