The monthly steel shipment data published by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) suggests substantial decline during the month of December last year compared with the same month a year before. However, the shipments surged higher over the previous month. Meantime, the full-year shipments in 2020 by mills were down significantly over 2019.
According to AISI data, the steel mills shipped 7.050 million net tons in December 2020. This is down by 12.1% from the shipments of 8.021 million net tons in the same month in 2019. The shipments during the month recorded modest increase by 4.4% from the prior month. It must be noted that the shipments had totalled 6.753 million net tons in November last year.