Weldbend News

The previous 5 years have certainly been interesting in our industry. Beginning in March 2020, we had the start of COVID which did not end until May 2023. With COVID and the following years, things were challenging. During this time, we published Price Sheet 822 in which we lowered prices because of the continued influx of import products and the state of the economy. We had to lower prices even though we have incurred higher costs not only in raw materials but wages, utilities, healthcare, tooling and all the other costs that are required to make our fittings & flanges.

In the year 2025, we have a new U.S. president and new challenges before us. We have seen tariffs on steel products, cars and energy that are imported to the U.S. At the same time, we have seen some of these tariffs taken off, threatened to be doubled, and new tariffs added. Tomorrow’s “Liberation Day” has been referred to as “The Big One”, suggesting that the plan may be far more reaching than the import tariff levels that have already been imposed on goods from other nations. 

I do not think anyone could disagree that over the past 20 years, the U.S. steel industry has been decimated by cheap government backed imports that have been dumped into the U.S – including fittings & flanges. In 2020, US Steel suspended operations at their large diameter seamless pipe mill. This effectively mandated that all 12” NPS and larger seamless pipes would need to come from overseas.

In January of this year U.S. Customs released their final determination finding that Chinese Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) were transshipped through Thailand to avoid antidumping and countervailing duties. According to the U.S. OCTG Manufacturers Association, the importers would be on the hook for penalties that may exceed a quarter of a billion dollars. This follows a pattern of Chinese goods being transshipped through 3rd party countries to avoid dumping duties and countervailing duties. 

We understand that our last price sheet was in August 2022. Because of the unknowns with tariffs and reciprocal tariffs, we still do not have a clear picture on how this will affect pricing and availability supplies we need to manufacture our fittings & flanges. I know our prices will be going up in the not too distant future, but the percentage of that increase is still under review.