Wheatland Tube Files Anti-Dumping Petition
CHICAGO — The Wheatland Tube division of Zekelman Industries today requested the U.S. Department of Commerce investigate whether circular welded pipe made from Indian steel and imported to the United States from Oman and the United Arab Emirates violates U.S. trade law.
The request filed today at Commerce seeks a ruling that Indian hot-rolled steel that is processed into standard pipe in Oman and the UAE constitutes merchandise “completed or assembled” in those countries for purposes of circumvention of existing duties applied to Indian standard pipe.
Should Commerce agree, the antidumping duties would apply to the Indian steel pipe processed in Oman and the UAE and then shipped to the U.S. The antidumping duty rates on standard pipe from India range from nearly 12% to more than 87%.
Wheatland Tube was joined in the request by co-petitioners Bull Moose Tube Company, Nucor Tubular Products, and the United Steelworkers. Circular welded pipe, also commonly referred to as standard pipe, and are used in plumbing and heating, air conditioning, automatic sprinkler, and fencing systems.
“Massive volumes of imports of standard pipe made from Indian hot-rolled steel have been coming into the United States, and these imports have been displacing U.S.-made product and causing negative effects on employment and sales,” said Barry Zekelman, CEO at Zekelman Industries. “Today we are taking this action to ensure that unfairly traded products do not take jobs from American workers or harm U.S. companies. Zekelman intends to vigorously pursue all circumvention related to tubular products.”
Wheatland Tube has five manufacturing plants, including two in Warren and Wheatland, Pa. Three additional plants are located in Cambridge, Ohio, Chicago, and Long Beach, Calif.
In recent years, Indian producers and exporters have been shipping ever-increasing volumes of hot-rolled steel to Oman and the UAE to be processed into standard pipe in those countries and avoid paying the high antidumping duties in place on pipe imports from India.
In fact, U.S. imports of standard pipe from Oman and the UAE have increased by roughly 35% — from 389,477 metric tons in the four-year period between 2013 and 2016 to 525,412 metric tons in the four-year period between 2017 and 2020. During this same period, exports of hot-rolled steel from India into Oman and the UAE have also increased dramatically.
Zekelman Industries is the largest steel pipe and tube producer in North America, with nearly 3,000 employees in the United States and plants in nine states.
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