New capacity justified, or have OCTG producers run amok?

Jun 30, 2011 | 07:00 PM | Michael Cowden

Tags  OCTG, U.S. Steel Corp., Tenaris SA, Petroleos Mexicanos, Tianjin Pipe Corp., Boomerang Tube LLC, Northwest Pipe Co., Lakeside Steel Inc. Michael Cowden

Build it and the buyers will come. At least, that’s what more than a few pipe mills appear to be banking on with new or soon-to-be built oil country tubular goods (OCTG) projects in the United States.

U.S. Steel Corp., Pittsburgh, remains the top player in terms of U.S. OCTG production capacity, which AMM estimates at about 1.7 million tons per year.

But Luxembourg-based Tenaris SA is hot on its heels, with 1.3 million tons in annual production capacity. While Petróleos Mexicanos will gobble up much of the output from Tenaris’ new 450,000-ton-per-year small-diameter seamless pipe mill in Veracruz, Mexico, commissioned in May after rolling its first pipe in November 2010, Tenaris has said that 70 percent of that production might be exported.....