Rebar piling up in Port of Baltimore: traders

May 25, 2012 | 02:04 PM | Catherine Ngai

Tags  steel reinforcing bar, rebar, imports, Catherine Ngai

NEW YORK — Unsold orders of Turkish steel reinforcing bar (rebar) appear to have caused a pile up at the Port of Baltimore due to previous over-enthusiasm about the Northeast region’s expected infrastructure growth, traders said.

"Baltimore is traditionally one of the larger markets for imported rebar. I think the problem is that people had gambled and put a lot of inventory on the ground. Then, the market went down quite a bit," said one trader.

Last year, a number of buyers and traders switched over to imported rebar after several U.S. mills raised prices in the late fall and demand started to grow in the South and the Northeast regions (AMM, Sept. 14). Total U.S. rebar imports jumped in January to 124,313 tonnes compared to 65,047 tonnes in December, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, and those figures have remained strong, totaling some 96,246 tonnes in April, preliminary data show.....





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