It’s another week of “same stuff, different day” for the
US domestic and import oil country
tubular goods (OCTG) casing market, as service centers, distributors and traders all say they’re waiting to see how the dust settles after the trade case announcement. Earlier this month, more than 150 members of congress called on the Obama Administration to hold Korean mills responsible for “illegally dumping” energy pipe into the
US marketplace, noting that foreign imports have nearly doubled in the past four years. Steel pipe and tube from Korea, they said, which doesn’t have any domestic market for OCTG has spiked 1,000 percent in the same time period.
US Steel also came out with an announcement, just days before the mid-term primary elections, that they would be closing two pipe mills due to “unfairly traded OCTG imports”. Although it’s still too soon to say how the International Trade Commission (ITC) will rule, just about everyone is sitting on the edge of their seats. In terms of pricing, both
US domestic and futures offers from Korea are on par with where they were a week ago, coming in at $59.00-$61.00 cwt. ($1,300-$1344/mt or $1,180-$1,220/nt) ex-Midwest mill and $47.50-$48.50 cwt. ($1,047-$1,069/mt or $950-$970/nt) DDP loaded truck
US Gulf coast ports, respectively.