On Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce announced new antidumping (AD) margins against Korean OCTG imports. As part of the ruling, Korean steelmaker Nexsteel’s dumping margins were raised from 3.98 percent to 24.92 percent and as such, trader sources say the new AD margins are “too high and prohibitive” to book US import OCTG casing from Nexteel.
The new question is whether a petition to have line pipe dumping margins re-evaluated is about to be filed. In Dec. 2015, the US DOC announced it would issue antidumping orders on Korean line pipe producers that spanned from 2.53 to 6.19 percent.
“There’s a lot of speculation and quite honestly, I’m surprised something wasn’t filed this week,” one source said. “We all thought that whatever happened with Korea in the OCTG case would be have an impact on line pipe.”
In terms of current pricing, sources close to SteelOrbis continue indicate that offer prices for Korean API X-52 line pipe in the US domestic market remains in the range of $42.50-$44.00 cwt. ($937-$970/mt or $850-$880/nt), DDP loaded truck in US Gulf coast ports, while prices for Mexican API X-52 line pipe in the US domestic have held at $45-$46 cwt. ($992-$1014/mt or $900-$920/nt), FOB Houston.