THE LINE PIPE MARKET

摘要

The section 232 ruling, the large ODtrade case, and a variety of other White Houseinitiatives resulted in a buying preference fordomestic material over the course of 2018 andinto 2019. Anecdotally this has been the caseparticularly in the project arena. Recently thetrend has started showing up in the numbers.Import fulfillments of orders placed for projectscontinue but the share is clearly shifting todomestic mills. For 2018, import share of largediameter line pipe averaged 43% with a 4Q18through Feb ‘19 reading of about 47%. In thelast 3 months, using licenses for May, importshare of large diameter line pipe dropped to anaverage of about 25% with each of the monthslower than the month prior. Are importsupplied projects over? No, in fact Junelicenses for large diameter line pipe through 11th are about 55,000 tons. Going forward,those will be the exception instead of the rule.