Seamless steel pipe and oil well pipe suffer great damage, Valin zero export to US

November 10 MetalBiz--On November 5, US Department of Commerce made a preliminary decision to levy up to 99.14% anti-dumping tax on oil well pipe from China, which is the highest rate in US' s dual-anti-investigation on products from China recently. A week ago, US International Trade Committee approved to launch anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on seamless steel pipe from China by a vote of 6:0.

Wang Zhaohua, analyst from Guodu Securities said that China' s oil well pipe products are gradually developing Middle East market, but from the long run, the overall recovery of China' s oil well pipe must depend on US market, therefore, this trade conflict will bring a negative impact on the industry.

US accounted for 37.62% of China' s total exports of seamless steel pipe in 2008, but the ratio dropped to 2.37% in July 2009, while China' s export to India and Canada reached 9.07% and1.55% respectively. From the long term, domestic seamless steel pipe capacity outstripped domestic demand and the substantial reviving lied in export especially the recovery export to US.

Industry insiders disclosed that the export dependence of China' s seamless steel pipe and oil well pipe was up to 30.2% and 58.9% correspondingly in 2008, while China' s oil well pipe products occupied 50% shares in US market in Q1, 2009.

It is learned that trade conflict in steel industry mainly affected Valin Steel, Pangang Vanadium and Daye Special, but presently the three enterprises are gradually adjusting export structure to evade the effect of dual-anti-investigation.

Yang Xianghong, general economist of Valin Steel said "the steel pipe products enjoyed significant export in 2007 and 2008, while US market is the main target market", "from the beginning of 2007, Valin began to adjust the export of steel pipe products and presently it mainly exports to Middle East, while the export to US is zero this year".