According to the data from US Department of Commerce (DOC), the US's imported steel plates reached 1 million tons in 2012, mostly in the first nine months of 2012.
Although it showed big slowdown in the fourth quarter of last year, the total plate imports rose 19% from 2011 to 1.17 million tons.
US imported the most cut to length plates from Canada, Korea, Brazil and Germany.
The price reached the highest to US$900/ton during May to August and it dropped thought the year to US$700/ton by the year end.
Other major exports to US are Turkey, Japan, Austria, and Sweden. Russia used to the biggest steel exports but its exports to the US went down significantly from May to December period.