Posted on 20 Jul 2016
Heavy-walled, rectangular carbon steel pipes are used mainly as structural members in construction. The Commerce Department recently affirmed earlier preliminary anti-dumping duties on pipe imports from Turkey, Mexico and the Republic of Korea.
The U.S. construction market has remained strong this this year with home constructionposting strong gains this summer and low-cost imports of structural pipe have certainly helped general contractors’ bottom lines.
Most of the anti-dumping duties for providers in South Korea and Mexico came in at less than 5.5%, but Turkey was the big importing loser with some of its steel companies hit with duties between 36 and 15%, although one Turkish steelmaker was found not to have dumped at all.
Commerce found dumping has occurred by mandatory Korean respondents Dong-A Steel Co. and HiSteel Co. Ltd. at dumping margins of 2.34% and 3.82%, respectively. All other producers/exporters in Korea will incur a final dumping margin of 3.24%.
For Mexico, Commerce found dumping has occurred by mandatory respondentsMaquilacero SA de CV and Productos Laminados de Monterrey SA de CV at dumping margins of 3.83% and 5.21%, respectively.
Commerce calculated a final dumping margin of 4.91% for all other producers/exporters in Mexico.
In the Turkey investigation, though, Commerce found dumping occurred by mandatory respondent MMZ Boru Profil Uretim Sanayi Ve Tic AS at a dumping margin of 35.66%.
Commerce determined that no dumping occurred by mandatory respondent Ozdemir Boru Profil San Ve Tic Ltd Sti (Ozdemir) and calculated a final dumping margin of 17.83% for all other producers/exporters in Turkey.
In the Turkey countervailing duties investigation, Commerce calculated final subsidy rates of 23.37% and 15.08% for mandatory respondents MMZ and Ozdemir, respectively. Commerce calculated a final subsidy rate of 19.06% for all other producers/exporters in Turkey.
The only saving grace for Turkey, Mexico and the Republic of Korea is that construction pipe is not a product that’s not made by larger steelmakers and many of the respondents are smaller companies. Korean steel giant POSCO, for example, was not petitioned or mentioned in the Korea investigation.
The petitioners for these investigations are Atlas Tube, a division of JMC Steel Group;Bull Moose Tube Company; EXLTUBE; Hannibal Industries, Inc.;Independence Tube Corporation; Maruichi American Corporation; Searing Industries; Southland Tube; and Vest, Inc.
