US to impose duties on steel pipe imports from China

THE US Department of Commerce will issue a duty on imports of "certain oil country tubular goods" from China, after the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) determined that "a US industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury" by the import of such goods.

All six USITC Commissioners voted in favour of imposing duties on steel pipe imports from China that are used in drilling for oil or gas, after the US Department of Commerce found the imported goods to have been subsidised.

In 2008, the US imported 2.2 million tons of this type of steel pipe from China that were valued at US$2.8 billion, according to a statement from the USITC.

The USITC took the action after receiving petitions from: Maverick Tube Corporation, Houston; United States Steel Corporation, Pittsburgh; V&M Star LP, Houston; V&M Tubular Corporation of America, Houston; TMK IPSCO of Camanche, Iowa; Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel of Pueblo, Colorado; Wheatland Tube Corp, Pennsylvania; and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union in Pittsburgh.

The USITC said these seven US companies produced three million tons of pipe valued at $6.2 billion in 2008. "Apparent" US consumption in 2008 was 6.7 million tons valued at $11.6 billion.

US steelmakers "have been clearly injured by high levels of unfairly traded oil country tubular goods into the US market, beginning in 2006 and continuing through the first half of 2009," Thomas Gibson, president and chief executive officer of the USITC was quoted as saying in a report by the American Shipper.

"At a time when the nation is struggling with double-digit unemployment, full and strict enforcement of our laws against dumped and subsidised imports of steel and other manufactured products from China is essential to maintaining a viable US manufacturing sector in the United States," he added.
 

Source: SchedNet