U.S. import of plates, sheets and strips increased about 30% in last two years

The U.S is a growing market for semi –finished aluminium products and a considerable part of its consumption is taken care of by import.

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Preliminary estimates indicate that aluminium demand in the United States and Canada (shipments by domestic producers plus imports) totalled an estimated 11 million tons from the period from January to October of 2016. Out of that, demand for semi- fabricated (mill) products totalled 7.7 million tons. Apparent consumption (demand minus exports) in domestic markets totalled an estimated 9.7 million tons YTD. Total aluminium consumption in USA was about 5.3 million tons in 2015.aluminium consumption in USA was about 5.3 million tons in 2015.



Import of aluminium plates, sheets and strips by USA plays a very significant part in domestic consumption of aluminium semi-finished products. As an interesting observation, net U.S. exports of aluminium sheets, plates, and strips displayed a generally upward trend from 2007 to 2013. However, after that, the trend started changing indicating a paradigm shift towards import.

Let us analyse the trading patterns of last three years for Plates, Sheets and Strips import by USA and an outlook for 2017 to get an understanding of the market in US and its major suppliers.

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The U.S. imported 995,614 tons of aluminium plates, sheets and strips in 2016 as compared to 928,434 tons in 2015. Compared to these, in the year 2014, the US imported 767,055 tons of aluminium plates, sheets and strips. The amount of import records a jump of about 30% in last two years. In the year 2017, U.S. import of aluminium plates, sheets and strips is estimated to be about 756,297 tons in the first nine months. The trend shows the import will reach about 1 million ton in 2017. The estimated total cost for the import volume amounted to US$ 3.2 billion in 2016 compared to US$ 2.4 billion in 2014.

The leading exporter to U.S. is China, which shipped about 266,500 tons of plates, sheets and strips to the U.S. in 2014 and that increased to 399,172 tons in 2016. The estimated export of aluminium plates, sheets and strips by China to US amounts to 315,619 tons for the first ten months of 2017. We can see the constant growth of import from China in these three years. Another major exporter of aluminium plates, sheets and strips to the U.S. is Canada that exported 169,655 tons to the U.S. in 2016, in comparison to 133,660 tons in 2014.

It is apparent that China is slowly taking over the U.S. downstream market after affecting the primary aluminium industry to a large extent. There is a huge demand for aluminium products from the automotive, packaging and aerospace industries in the U.S. resulting in flooding of cheaper and highly subsidized products from China.

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