The fate of the pending antidumping and countervailing duty case against certain offshore producers of oil country
tubular goods (OCTG) casing continues to be anyone’s guess, although Monday’s announcement by
US Steel indicating plans to idle two of their
tubing mills certainly raised a few eyebrows. Although some market players are asking the obvious question, namely “Do they know something about the trade case that we don’t?” others see the move as creative politicking; one, the company has blamed the closures on offshore producers’ flooding the market with cheap import material; two, the final determinations in the trade case are set to come out in the middle part of July; and three, the mills aren’t slated to close until early August. Although the closure of the McKeesport, Pennsylvania and Bellville, Texas
tubing mills is not that surprising based on
US Steel’s nearly consistent quarterly losses in the past few years, the timing of the announcement seems more than a little suspect.
In terms of prices, very little, if anything has changed since our last report a week ago. Pricing for
US domestic unfinished J55 ERW oil country
tubular goods (OCTG) casing continues to trend in the approximate range of $59.00-$61.00 cwt. ($1,300-$1344/mt or $1,180-$1,220/nt), ex-Midwest mill, while futures prices for finished J55 ERW casing from second and third tier Korean and Taiwanese mills can still be purchased in the approximate range of $42.50-$43.50 cwt. ($937-$959/mt or $850-$870/nt), DDP loaded truck
US Gulf coast ports, while offers from Korean-based Nexsteel are trending $4.00-$5.00 cwt. ($88-$110/mt or $80-$100/nt) higher.