In an effort to move material, import oil country tubular goods (OCTG) prices have been facing severe downward pressure. J55 electric resistance welded (ERW) OCTG casing prices from offshore for futures haven't really moved in the last week and Korean, Taiwanese, and Indian sales prices in the US remain largely between $47.50-$48.50 cwt. ($1,047-$1069/mt or $950-$970/nt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports. However, sources tell SteelOrbis that mills can be persuaded to drop prices by about $0.50 cwt. ($11/mt or $10/nt), bringing prices on par with Turkish, Vietnamese, and Malaysian prices. Meanwhile, unsold trader position tons have been sold as low as $45.00 cwt. ($992/mt or $900/nt) at the port, according to some US distributor buyers situated near Gulf area ports, due to extremely high availability.
Data from the US Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) system indicate that 304,414 mt (license data) of OCTG arrived in the US in March, the highest level in over two years. March also followed heavy import arrivals in January (280,733 mt--census data) and February (253,506--preliminary census data)--both higher than any month in 2011. The import deluge is also having an adverse effect on US domestic spot prices at some mills, but for the most part US spot prices are largely still between of $66.00-$67.00 cwt. ($1,455-$1,477/mt or $1,320-$1,340/nt) ex-Midwest mill.