According to Mr Andrew G Sharkey president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, US steel industry is on track to ship about 110 million net tons of steel products in 2008 up from almost 106 million tons in 2007.
Mr Sharkey at its recent annual meeting of AISI estimated that steel imports will be around 30.5 million tones in 2008 down from 33.2 million tons in 2007. He added that annualized first quarter imports are running at a rate of 33.9 million tons.
Mr Sharkey insists that imports will run below the 2007 import tonnage of 32.3 million. Exports, which this spring have been running around 11.7 million tons annualized, may exceed 12 million tons in 2008, which would be another record.
AISI numbers project that apparent steel supply in the US will increase to about 123 million tons in 2008, up just slightly from a revised 122 million tons in 2007. This is close to the end March annualized projection of 123.5 million tons for 2008.
| Year | Shipment | Import | Export | Adj | Apparent supply |
| 2000 | 109 | 38 | 7 | 1 | 142 |
| 2001 | 99 | 30 | 6 | -1 | 122 |
| 2002 | 99 | 33 | 8 | 1 | 125 |
| 2003 | 106 | 23 | 8 | -2 | 119 |
| 2004 | 112 | 36 | 8 | 2 | 143 |
| 2005 | 103 | 32 | 9 | -3 | 123 |
| 2006 | 109 | 45 | 10 | 4 | 147 |
| 2007 | 106 | 33 | 11 | -6 | 122 |
| 2008 | 110 | 31 | 12 | -6 | 123 |
Even though the AISI meeting was held in conjunction with the Chicago based Metals Service Center Institute, Mr Sharkey didn't address actual end use projections to compare with the 116 million tons in 2007 that includes distribution industry inventory adjustment calculations.
(Source: American Iron and Steel Institute)