While oil country tubular goods (OCTG) imports have maintained a level of interest for US buyers over the latter half of this year, standard pipe import activity had been waning up until now.
Beginning this week, traders are indicating that there will be greater interest in structural standard pipe offers from offshore sources, as many US customer inventories have slowly dwindled and prices are beginning to rise.
Since most foreign mills have announced increases over the last couple business days within the vicinity of $2.00 cwt. ($44/mt or $40/nt) on electric resistance welded (ERW) black plain end (BPE) A53 standard pipe, traders have begun feeling out these offers more than they had just last week. Malaysian and Taiwanese offers on Grade A product are currently being quoted at approximately $44.00 to $45.00 cwt. ($970 to $993/mt or $880 to $900/nt) duty-paid, FOB loaded truck in US Gulf Coast ports, although traders expect to be able to have some negotiation power if they were to book a decent amount of tonnage from one of these sources. Offers from Dubai on ERW BPE A53 standard Grade B pipe is a little higher, although perhaps more aggressive, at about $44.50 to $45.50 cwt. ($981 to $1,003/mt or $890 to $910/nt) duty-paid, FOB loaded truck in US Gulf Coast ports.
But traders who are interested in booking today at the cheapest rates possible are looking no further than Korea. Korean mills, although limited in structural standard pipe capacity, have been extremely aggressive with just about all pipe offers, including on ERW BPE A53 Grade A. Traders have indicated that Korean prices have not yet increased from offers seen earlier in the month, and even if an increase is announced this week, buyers have the potential to negotiate down to the previous levels of this product, at around $41.00 to $42.00 cwt. ($904 to $926/mt or $820 to $840/nt) duty-paid, FOB loaded truck in US West Coast ports.
Some reports have been surfacing lately that Korean pipe, namely OCTG, could be facing antidumping (AD) suits in the near future, which would ultimately affect line and standard pipe offers; however, for the time being at least, most Korean mills appear poised to remain aggressive with offers as they trust their accounting and are not worried about possible AD measures.