Import oil country tubular goods (OCTG) competition continues to be relentless, driving import prices to the US lower once again in the last week. As mentioned in previous reports, J55 electric resistance welded (ERW) OCTG casing import competition is especially fierce, and with large volumes of unsold imports sitting at US ports, some traders have been forced to lower prices to compete with other traders looking to sell off excess inventory. Since last week, Korean and Taiwanese sales prices in the US have fallen about $1.00 cwt. ($22/mt or $20/nt) to $47.50-$48.50 cwt. ($1,047-$1069/mt or $950-$970/nt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports--Indian offer prices are within a similar range. Turkish, Vietnamese and Malaysian OCTG casing offers to the US are about $0.50 cwt. ($11/mt or $10/nt) lower, after dropping $0.50 cwt. in the last week. Sources tell SteelOrbis that US buyer hesitation along with Korean and Taiwanese price declines are forcing a drop in other import offer prices.
Falling US import prices, and the high availability of traders' unsold spot tons, continue to put pressure on US domestic J55 ERW OCTG casing spot prices. But while there have been some deals for larger projects under the spot range of $66.00-$67.00 cwt. ($1,455-$1,477/mt or $1,320-$1,340/nt) ex-Midwest mill (unchanged from a week ago), those discounted deals haven't deviated too far from the current range--demand levels remain strong and most OCTG is tied in specific projects, preventing too much domestic OCTG from being available on the spot market.