Trade case rumors renewed within US line pipe market

Recent rumblings that some offshore producers of oil country tubular goods (OCTG) may be hit much harder than expected in the ongoing antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) trade case have many line pipe buyers in the US wondering if they might soon find themselves facing an AD/CVD suit of their own.  In the early part of the year, it was suspected that if the OCTG preliminary margins were high, a line pipe filing would be just around the corner, but when Korean margins came back in the zero percent range, the line pipe case rumors fell silent.  But now, SteelOrbis sources have said that it looks like the Korea situation may very well change, and if the OCTG case is successful, line pipe could be filed shortly thereafter.  For now, the most commonly reported spot price transaction range for both domestics and imports have held steady in the past week, with US domestic pricing still at $51.00-$52.00 cwt. ($1,124-$1,146/mt or $1,020-$1,040/nt), ex-Midwest mill, while Vietnamese and Taiwanese offers continue to trend at approximately $38.50-$39.50 cwt. ($849-$871/mt or $770-$790/nt) DDP loaded truck US Gulf coast.